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CRANFORD 


BY 

MRS. GASKELL 

I » 


With a Preface by 

ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE 



NEW YORK: 46 East i 4 th Street 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 

BOSTON; ioo Purchase Street 



Copyright, 

1892, 

By T. Y. CROWELL & CO. 



I 

My father has written of the memories connected 
with the writing of books, and of the scenes and feel- 
ings which are printed on the pages, quite other from 
those which they recount. And there are also the 
associations of the readers as well as of the writers. 
One scene in Cranford always comes back to me, not 
only for its own most pathetic value, but because I saw 
my father reading it. I can still remember him com- 
ing through the doorway just as I had finished the 
chapter, when not without some agitation and excite- 
ment I put the close printed number of Household 
Words into his hand. It was in the little dining-room 
of his house in Young Street, by gas light, just before 
dinner-time. The story was that of Captain Brown, 
and he sat down and read it then and there, and after- 
wards told me the writer’s name. But indeed I did 
not think of it as a story at all, it seemed to me rather 
that I had witnessed some most touching and heroic 
deed, some sad disaster, and though I was a grown 

iii 


IV 


PREFACE 


girl at the time I had a foolish childish wish for my 
father’s sympathy, and a feeling that even yet he 
might avert the catastrophe. Dear Captain Brown! 
in his shabby wig and faded coat, loved and remem- 
bered far beyond the narrow boundaries of Cranford 
— the city of the Amazons, the home of Miss Pole, 
and Miss Matty, and Miss Jenkyns/the place. where 
economy was always “ elegant,” where “ though some 
might be poor we were all aristocratic^’ Ever since 
the winter’s evening when I made my first acquaint- 
ance with that delightful place it has seemed to me 
something of a visionary country home, which I have 
visited at intervals all my life long (in spirit) for re- 
freshment and change of scene. I have been there in 
good company. “ Thank you for your letter,” Char- 
lotte Bronte writes to Mrs. Gaskell in 1853. “It was 
as pleasant as a quiet chat, as welcome as spring 
showers, as reviving as a friend’s visit ; in short, it 
was very like a page of Cranford ’.” . . . The quota- 
tion breaks off with little dots, but I am sure that 
each of them represents a happy moment for Currer 
Bell, who had not many such in her sad life. 

There is a most interesting notice of Mrs. Gaskell 
in the Biographical Dictionary , in which Lord Hough- 
ton is quoted as writing of Cranford , as “ the finest 
piece of humoristic description that has been added 
to British literature since Charles Lamb.” I had 
been thinking of Elia after re-reading the book, and 
I was pleased to find myself on the steps of such a 
critic as Lord Houghton. One could imagine Mrs. 
Sarah Battle and the poor relation dwelling in Cran- 
ford, and if Charles Lamb could have liked anything 


PREFACE 


V 


that was not London, he too might have fancied the 
place. Perhaps Miss Austen’s ladies may also have 
visited there, but I feel less certainty about them, they 
belong to a different condition of things, to a more 
lively love-making set of people, both younger in age 
and older in generation than the Cranford ladies. 
Cranford is farther removed from the world, and yet 
more attuned to its larger interests than Meryton or 
Kelly nch or Hartfield. Drumble, the great noisy 
manufacturing town, is its metropolis, not Bath with 
its succession of card parties and Assembly Rooms. 
At Cranford love is a memory rather than a present 
emotion ; the sentimental locks of hair have turned to 
gray, the billet doux to yellow, like autumn leaves fall- 
ing from the Tree of Life, but there is more of real 
feeling in these few signs of what was once, than in all 
the Misses BennetPs youthful romances put together. 
/Only Miss Austen’savery sweetest heroines (including 
her own irresistible dark-eyed self, in her big cap and 
folded kerchief) are worthy of the old place. I should 
give the freedom of Cranford, were it mine to bestow, 
in the usual “ handsome casket,” to Anne Elliott, to 
Fanny Price perhaps . . . but as I write some spirit 
of compunction disturbs the “ obiter dicta ” of a hasty 
moment. Where is one to draw the line! Lady 
Bertram and the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson would 
surely have been kindred souls, delightful creatures 
both with their divergences. Who will ever forget 
Lady Bertram’s plea for morality, or Mrs. Jamieson’s 
languid replies to Miss Matty’s inquiries as to the 
preparations expected in a gentleman’s dressing- 
room, those answers given in the wearied manner of 


VI 


PREFACE 


the Scandinavian prophetess, “ Leave me, leave me to 
repose.” 

But it is all very well to decide who shall and who 
shall not in turn be a dweller in this favoured spot! 
Cranford chooses its own inhabitants, and is every- 
where, where people have individuality and kindliness, 
and where oddities are tolerated, nay, greatly loved 
for the sake of the individuals. 

I am sure Cranford existed in the quarter in Paris 
where my own early youth was passed. I can remem- 
ber it in Kensington also, though we did not quite go 
the length of putting our cows into gray flannel dress- 
ing-gowns, as Miss Betsy Barker did. Perhaps Cran- 
ford did not even stop at Kensington, but may have 
reached farther afield, taking Chiswick on its way. 
Miss Deborah, as she preferred to be called, is cer- 
tainly first cousin to Miss Pinkerton ; can either of 
these ladies have been connected with the unrivalled 
Miss Seward herself ? I do not quite know upon 
what terms Miss Seward and Dr. Johnson happen 
to be, but I could imagine the great lexicographer 
driving them all before him and Miss Pinkerton’s 
turban, or Miss Jenkyns in her little helmet-like 
bonnet. 

Miss Deborah and Miss Pinkerton belong to an alto- 
gether bygone type, but all the rest of the ladies in 
Cranford are as modern and as much alive as if they 
had been born in the 6o’s. 

“ I believe the art of telling a story is born with some 
people,” writes the author of Cranford ; it was certainly 
born with Mrs. Gaskell. My sister and I were once 
under the same roof with her in the house of our friends 


PREFACE 


Vll 


Mr. and Mrs. George Smith, and the remembrance 
of her voice comes back to me, harmoniously flowing 
on and on, with spirit and intention, and delightful 
emphasis, as we all sat indoors one gusty morning 
listening to her ghost stories. They were Scotch 
ghosts, historical ghosts, spirited ghosts, with faded 
uniforms and nice old powered queues. As I think it 
over I am suddenly struck by the immense superiority 
of the ghosts of my youth to the present legion of 
unclean spirits which surround us, as we are told — 
wielding teacups, smashing accordions and banjos, 
breaking furniture in bits. That morning at Hamp- 
stead, which I recall, was of a different order of things, 
spiritual and unseen ; mystery was there, romantic 
feeling, some holy terror and emotion, all combined 
to keep us gratefully silent and delighted. 


II 

It is something for us Cockneys to know that Mrs. 
Gaskell belongs to London after all, if only as a baby. 
Although so much of her life was spent in the North, 
and Knutsford was the home of her childhood, and 
Manchester that of her married life, yet she was born 
in Chelsea. She was born in 1810, in pretty old 
Lindsay Place, of which the windows — ancient lights 
even then — still look out upon the river at its turn, as 
it flows from Cheyne Row, towards the sunset, past 
Fulham Palace, where the Bishops dwell, and Hamp- 
ton Court and its histories, out into the country plains 
beyond. 


viii 


PREFACE 


Mrs Gaskell was born in that propitious hour of the 
great men and women who came into the world in the 
beginning of this century : may the next hundred years 
bring to our descendants many more such birthdays ! 
She belonged to a good stock on either side ; her father 
came from Berwick upon Tweed, that city built upon 
the rock ; he was Mr. William Stevenson, a Unitarian 
minister. There is a tradition that the Stevensons 
came originally from Norway, and there are old family 
papers in which the name is spelt Stevensen. Mrs. 
Gaskell liked to think of her Scandinavian forefathers, 
and when she went away now and again for little 
jaunts and expeditions, such as she always enjoyed, she 
used to laugh and say that the blood of the Vikings 
her ancestors was rising in her veins. She was always 
tenderly attached to her father’s memory, and proud 
and fond of him, and he must have been indeed a 
most interesting and delightful character. A letter 
lately written to the Athenceum, evidently by some old 
friend of the family, gives a quotation from Longman’s 
Annual Obituary for 1830 and of the notice of Mr. 
Stevenson’s death, beginning thus : “ The literary and 
scientific world has sustained a great loss in the death 
of Mr. Stevenson, a man remarkable for the stores of 
knowledge which he possessed, and for the simplicity 
and modesty by which his rare attainments were con- 
cealed.” Among other facts we read that in early life 
while preaching in Manchester Mr. Stevenson was 
also “ Classical Tutor in the Manchester Academy, so 
well known through the Aikens and Barbaulds. He 
was afterwards appointed secretary to Lord Lauder- 
dale, and finally Keeper of the Records to the Treas- 


PREFACE 


lx 


ury, both of which appointments brought him up to 
London.” He laboured with unremitting diligence, 
contributing to the Edinburgh Review , the Westmin- 
ster, and Dr. Brewster’s Encyclopedia. “He had the 
true spirit of a faithful historian, and, contrary to the 
practice Joo prevalent in those days, dived into orig- 
inal sources of information.” Was not this the father, 
one might imagine, for such a daughter ? Mr. Steven- 
son married, as his first wife, Miss Eliza Holland of 
Sandlebridge. It would not be difficult to name some 
dozen families now existing which have set their mark 
upon the times, trump cards in the game of life, so to 
speak, and to one of these families Mrs. Gaskell’s 
mother belonged. The poor young lady died very soon 
after her little girl was born, and the child was taken 
away to the care of an aunt, her mother’s sister, who 
was living at Knutsford in Cheshire with an only child, 
a cripple. The whole story was very melancholy, and 
one can imagine that it may have been a somewhat 
sad and silent home for a little girl full of life and im- 
agination. There was an uncle also dwelling in the 
same little country town, Dr. Peter Holland, who 
was the father of the great physician Sir Henry Hol- 
land, and the grandfather of the present Lord Knuts- 
ford. Besides their houses in Knutsford the Holland 
family had a pretty old country house some two or three 
miles beyond the town, from whence Mrs. Gaskell’s 
own mother had come. The house where Mrs. Gas- 
kell lived as a little girl with her aunt is on the Heath, 
a tall red house, with a wide spreading view, and with 
a pretty carved staircase and many light windows 
both back and front. 


X 


PREFACE 


I have heard that Mrs. Gaskell was not always quite 
happy in those days, — imaginative children go 
through many phases and trials of their own, — in her 
hours of childish sorrow and trouble she used to run 
away from her aunt’s house across the Heath and hide 
herself in one of its many green hollows, finding com- 
fort in the silence, and in the company of birds and 
insects and natural things. But at other times she 
had delightful games of play with her cousins in the 
sweet old family house at Sandlebridge, where so 
many Hollands in turn had lived. 

The old house stands lonely in a beautiful and tran- 
quil position with a wavering prospect of fields and 
shady trees and hedges, reaching to the hills which rise 
in the far distance. As we stood there we could see 
Alderley Edge clean painted against the stormy sky. 
Just before reaching the house the road dips into a 
green hollow, where stands a forge which has been 
there for over two hundred years, handed down from 
father to son. Just beyond the forge is an old mill, 
shaded by beautiful trees ; we could hear the peaceful 
sounds of labour, the clanking blows of the anvil, the 
soft monotonous thud of the mill. 

Sandlebridge is now given up to a farmer ; a pretty 
flagged stone path leads up to the front door. There 
used to be two brick pediments with balls at the gar- 
den gate. Years ago, so long ago that the great 
Lord Clive was only a schoolboy in Knutsford at the 
time (his mother was a Gaskell and had connections 
in the place), he used to come over to spend his half 
holidays at Sandlebridge, and his pleasure was to 
jump across from one stone ball to the other, to the 


PREFACE 


xi 


great danger of his legs and arms. Here too in later 
times, as we have said, Mrs. Gaskell used to come as 
a little girl, and play with her cousins and gather 
flowers from the garden. There was a great bed of 
saxifrage, which may still be there, it was always her 
favourite flower. The old house is now dismantled, 
but one or two things still remain out of its past ; 
among others are the fine old wooden chimney-pieces 
in the front parlour, one within the other, — so it 
seemed to me, — - and the old shuflleboard. A shuffle- 
board is an immensely long table, standing upon legs 
of shining oak with many drawers and cupboards un- 
derneath. There are hardly any left anywhere now. 
They were once used for a game which consisted in 
jerking heavy counters from one end to the other of 
the shining board, and trying to keep your own and 
to throw your enemy’s over the side of the table. As 
we were looking with interest at all these relics of by- 
gone times, we heard a sort of chucking noise from the 
big inner room or kitchen ; it came from a little per- 
son some two or three months old lying in a huge 
carved oak cradle by the fire, which cradle must have 
rocked any number of generations to sleep. 

Knutsford itself is a little town of many oak beams 
and solid brick walls ; there are so many slanting 
gables left, and lattices and corners, that the High 
Street has something the look of a mediaeval street. 
“ ’T is an old ancient place,” said the shopwoman, 
standing by her slanting counter, where Shakespeare 
himself might have purchased hardware. From the 
main street several narrow courts and passages lead to 
the other side of the little town, the aristocratic quarter, 


Xll 


PREFACE 


where are the old houses with their walled gardens. 
One of these passages runs right through the Royal 
George Hotel, itself leading from shadow into the 
sunshine, where a goat disports itself, and one or two 
ladies seem always passing with quiet yet rapid steps, 
— the inhabitants of Knutsford do not saunter. My 
friend the shopwoman told us she had a beautiful 
garden at the back of her u old ancient place 11 ; all 
the houses in Knutsford have gardens, with parterres 
beautifully kept, and flowers in abundance. It was 
autumn, but everything was swept and tidy. Strag- 
gling branches, plants overgrown and run to seed do 
not seem to be known in Knutsford amidst its heathy 
open spaces. There is something so spirited and 
fresh and methodical in the place that I can under- 
stand how even the flower-beds have a certain self- 
respect, and grow trim and straight, instead of strag- 
gling about in lazy abandon, as mine do at home. 

As we entered the Royal George Hotel out of the 
dark street, we came upon a delightful broadside of 
shining oak staircase and panelled wainscot ; old oak 
settles and cupboards stood upon the landings. On 
the walls hung pictures, one was of Lord Beacons- 
field, one was a fine print of George IV., and others 
again of that denuded classic school of art which 
seems to have taken a last refuge in old English 
Inns. There were Chippendale cabinets, old bits of 
china, and above all there were the beautiful oak ban- 
nisters to admire. But these handsome staircases, the 
china, the wood carvings are all about the place, to 
which the great traffic of the coaches from Liverpool 
and Manchester brought real prosperity for many 


PREFACE 


xiii 

years, so that the modest little houses are full of 
worthy things, of pretty doorways, arched corners, 
carved landings and mahogany doors, to make the 
fortune of a dealer in bric-a-brac, only that these are 
not bric-k-brac, and this is their charm. The stair- 
cases and chimney-pieces are their own original 
selves, the cupboards were made to dwell in their own 
particular niches, and it is the passing generations who 
turn and unturn the keys as they go by. Our kind 
Interpreter at Knutsford patiently led us from one 
place to another; sometimes we seemed to be in 
Cranford, greeting our visionary friends ; sometimes 
we were back in Knutsford again, looking at the 
homes of the people we had known in the fact rather 
than in the fancy. And just as one sometimes sees 
traces of another place and time still showing in the 
streets of some new and busy town, so every here and 
there seemed isolated signs and tokens of the vision- 
ary familiar city as it has been raised by the genius 
of its founder. 


Ill 

Mrs. Gaskell was a very beautiful young woman. 
I heard her described only the other day by a friend 
who remembered her in her youth. She had a well- 
shaped head, regular, finely-cut features ; her mien 
was bright and dignified, almost joyous, so my in- 
formant said, and among her many other gifts was that 
of delightful companionship. She was very young 
when she was married to the Reverend William Gas- 
kell, minister of the Cross Street Unitarian Chapel in 


XIV 


PREFACE 


Manchester. She was married from her aunt’s house 
at Cranford at the Parish Church, and not in the beau- 
tiful old Unitarian Chapel, with its ivy-clad walls and 
latticed windows, dating from Oliver Cromwell’s time. 
In those days marriages were only solemnised in the 
Parish Church. 

The young couple settled in their new home, 
Mrs. Gaskell “ co-operated with her husband in his 
work,” we are told, “ and was always ready for any 
useful work of charity or helpfulness.” 

Mr. Gaskell was one of those ministers whose con- 
gregations are outside as well as inside chapel walls, 
for I have heard his name mentioned again and again 
by different people, and always with affection and 
respect. 

For some years after her marriage Mrs. Gaskell 
lived a domestic life, busy with her children, and 
ordering her household and training her maids, for 
which indeed she had a special gift ; then a terrible 
sorrow fell upon her, and we know how she began to 
write to divert her mind from brooding upon the loss 
of her only son. 

In 1847 she had finished that noble book, Mary 
Barton , that book with a “sob in it,” as the French 
critic says. “ Ah! quelle musique douloureuse dans 
un sanglotP 

But there is something far beyond a sob in Mary 
Barton. The writer is writing of what she has lived, 
not only of what she has read or even looked at as 
she passed her way. It is true she read Adam Smith 
and studied Social Politics , but with that admirable 
blending of the imaginative and the practical qualities 


PREFACE 


xv 


which was her gift, she knows how to stir the dry 
skeleton to life and reach her readers 1 hearts. Many 
books and novels dealing with the poor are touch- 
ingly expressed and finely conceived, but somehow 
this particular gift of the spirit is wanting ; we admire 
the books without being ourselves absorbed by them. 
It is the difference in short between the light of genius 
and the rays of the prism analysed, calculated, divided. 
This power of living in the lives of others and calling 
others to share the emotion, does not mean, as people 
sometimes imagine, that a writer copies textually from 
the world before her. I have heard my father say that 
no author worth anything, deliberately, and as a rule, 
copies the subject before him. And so with Mrs. 
Gaskell. Her early impressions were vivid and dear 
to her, but her world, though coloured by remembrance 
and sympathy, was peopled by the fresh creations of 
her vivid imagination, not by stale copies of the 
people she had known. 

Mary Barton made a great and remarkable sensa- 
tion. Carlyle, Landor, Miss Edgeworth praised and 
applauded, and nameless thousands also praised and 
read the noble outspoken book. “ Individuals may 
have complained , 11 so says the biographer, from whom 
I have so often quoted, u but the work has unquestion- 
ably helped to make the manufacturing world very 
different from what it was forty years ago . 11 

The same intuition which guided her along the 
pleasant country lanes made her at home in the teem- 
ing streets and crowded alleys of Manchester. 

A very interesting article by Monsieur Emile Montd- 
gut, written some thirty years ago, pays a fine tribute 


XVI 


PREFACE 


to Mrs. Gaskell’s striking exposition of the life amidst 
which so much of her own was passed, to her depth 
of feeling, to her moderation of statement. 

The article also, to my surprise, gives an answer to 
the little riddle I was trying to solve in my own mind 
as to the difference between the world of Cranford and 
that of Miss Austen. Each century possesses a force 
of its own, says the critic, one particular means of 
action, to the exclusion of others ; it may be intelli- 
gence, it may be passion, it may be determination, each 
rules in turn. 

In the sixteenth century will prevailed, and the char- 
acter of the men and the martyrs of that time were in 
value far beyond their convictions. In the eighteenth 
century, on the contrary, the ideas were worth more 
than the lives. Books and pamphlets were better 
than the men who wrote them. What is the force, 
says Mr. Mont^gut, of the age in which we ourselves 
are living? it is certainly not will, nor is it brilliant 
intelligence, as in the days of Voltaire. It is a quality 
which, for want of a better word, we will call “the 
force of sentiment.” . . . “People,” he continues, 
“ have little confidence in systems, a man with a hobby 
is immediately a butt, but a man who is not obliged 
to be right in order to guard his vanity, has but to de- 
scribe in a few simple and true sentences some fact, 
some moral wrong which needs redressing, and see 
the effect, and the silent help which immediately fol- 
lows, and for this reason it is that in literature we 
have seen of late the almost exclusive reign of fic- 
tion.” . . . 

It is this quality of statement which we find in Mrs^ 


PREFACE 


XVII 


Gaskell’s books which distinguishes them from so 
many which preceded them, and which gives them 
their influence. It was because she had written Mary 
Barton that some deeper echoes reach us in Cranford 
than are to be found in any of Jane Austen’s books, 
delightful as they are. Young people read books to 
learn about their lives which are to come, old people 
read them to forget the present ; there is yet another 
class of readers, old and young, who read to find ex- 
pression to the indefinite unshaped feelings by which 
they are haunted, — of all these will not each find re- 
sponse in the books of Elizabeth Gaskell, in Ruth. 
in Cousin Phyllis, in Sylvia's Lovers , in that last fine 
work which she never finished ? 

It must be remembered that Mrs. Gaskell wrote in 
the great time of literature, in the earlier part of the 
century. It remains for readers of this later time to 
see how nobly she held her own among the masters 
of her craft. “ She has done what we none of us 
could do,” said George Sand to Lord Houghton ; “ she 
has written novels which excite the deepest interest in 
men of the world, and yet which every girl will be the 
better for reading.” 

We all know what a friend Mrs. Gaskell proved her- 
self to Charlotte Bronte, and what happiness this 
friendship brought to the author of Jane Eyre. Mrs. 
Gaskell had the gift of giving out in a very remarkable 
degree. Miss Bronte, as we all know, was tortured 
and imprisoned by shyness. “ She does not, and can- 
not care for me, for she does not know me, how should 
she,” Miss Bronte says, writing of a child of Mrs. 
Gaskell, but that child’s mother did Charlotte Bronte 


XV111 


PREFACE 


justice, and guessed by happy intuition at the treasure 
concealed in the unpretending casket. 

Mrs. Gaskell quotes a letter from Miss Bronte in 
her Life which is very characteristic of them both. 
“ Do you, who have so many friends, so large a circle 
of acquaintance, find it easy when you sit down to 
write to isolate yourself from all those ties and their 
sweet associations, so as to be your own woman, un- 
influenced or swayed by the consciousness of how 
your work may affect other minds, what blame or what 
sympathy it may call forth ; does no luminous cloud 
ever come between you and the severe truth in your 
own secret or clear-seeing soul ? 11 This question is 
best answered by Mrs. Gaskell’s own pages. Whether 
or not she found it easy I cannot say, but that she did 
not “ isolate herself,” but did on the contrary entirely 
associate her own woman with the work of her life, 
her readers can best realise. Her great natural gift 
and genius instinctively led her to the secret of things, 
to the very soul of her race. She must have felt its 
life and spirit too keenly indeed for her own happiness 
at times, but how much has she not added to the sun- 
shine of the world ! 

Not long ago I found myself in Mrs. Gaskell’s old 
home in Manchester, and the thought of the beautiful 
books created in those very rooms seemed to give 
life to the stones and to light up the grim Manches- 
ter streets outside. Cranford was written in the 
house in Plymouth Grove, as were almost all Mrs. 
Gaskell’s books. But when tired or overdone she 
used often to return to Knutsford for rest and for re- 
freshment. Sometimes in later life she stayed with 


PREFACE 


xix 


her cousins, the Miss Hollands, whose traditions she 
wove into shape, together with the quaint conceits 
and stories which are still told in Knutsford. It has 
its customs and oddities now, just as when Mrs. Gas- 
kell was a girl. I am told that the streets are sanded 
on certain days in pretty patterns all along the pave- 
ment ; there are temperance processions in which the 
immortal sedan chair still figures, and I myself ob- 
served that some of the humbler bonnets formed 
quite an important feature in the scene, while recol- 
lections of Miss Matty’s successive caps seemed to 
float across one’s mind. It was delightful to hear 
the people of Knutsford still speak of Mrs. Gaskell 
and of the pleasure her visits always brought, and the 
pleasure she always took in them ; of her long country 
drives with an old friend, a doctor, going his rounds, 
twenty and thirty miles at a time ; of her talk and inter- 
est in all the details along the way. She loved country 
things and farming things ; she always kept her cow, 
even in Manchester ; she understood the practical facts 
of life as well as its feelings. I have heard of her, 
tired and ill, starting on a three mile walk on behalf 
of a poor dependent, so as to make sure that some 
necessary help was properly administered. There is 
one thrilling tradition of Knutsford far too melodra- 
matic for our Cranford, where the mere rumour of the 
housebreaker so alarmed Mr. Mulliner ; this story is 
that of the highwayman Higgins, who lived in Heath 
House, and who kept his horses underground con- 
cealed in the cellar. The highwayman must have 
enjoyed his lovely garden and his fine old staircase, 
when he was not escaping by his secret passage. 


XX 


PREFACE 


I heard of one Knutsford lady the other day, 
greatly excited by some piece of news, — no highway 
robbery, but a wedding, I believe. To soothe her- 
self she was obliged to have a dish of toasted cheese 
prepared, and to send for a friend to play besique, 
and share the news and the dainty : it might have 
been Miss Barker herself. Another little story amused 
us greatly, so well was it told, and so characteristic of 
all times, old and new. One of the young Hol- 
lands born in the South was greatly interested in the 
family traditions, and he came for a holiday to Knuts- 
ford to see the old home of his fathers. He looked 
all about Knutsford, and then went on to Sandle- 
bridge to call on the old farmer there, and asked him 
many questions, and begged him to show him all over 
the place. And the old farmer kindly welcomed the 
young man for his parents 1 and grandparents 1 sake, 
and said, “ O yes, Master Frank, I’ll show you about. 
I’ll show you wonderful things ; I’ll show you things 
will mak 1 your hair stan 1 on end. Coom along o 1 
me.” So they drove and they drove along the lanes 
and under the hedgerows, and all the way the young 
man wondered what was coming, until finally the old 
farmer, who would not say a word beforehand, stopped 
his horse and triumphantly pointed to the bran new 
red and yellow villas which had been built on Alderley 
Edge, where he found such good custom for his but- 
ter and eggs. And these were the wonderful things. 

Knutsford likes to associate itself with Cranford in 
a desultory visionary sort of way. One house claims 
Miss Matty’s tea-shop. The owner was standing in 
the doorway, and he kindly brought us into the little 


PREFACE 


xxi 


wainscoted parlour, with the window on the street 
through which Aga Jenkyns may have dispensed Miss 
Matty’s stock of sugar plums ; here too was a pretty 
carved staircase and arches belonging to the early 
Georges ; another most charming old house, Church 
House, with the lovely garden where the children 
were gathering the apples and the gay flower beds were 
skirting the turf walk, might almost have been the 
home of Molly Gibson, and its present mistress said 
she liked to imagine her peeping out from the side 
window at the old coaches as they clattered through 
the town. As I sate there drinking my tea I thought 
I could almost hear Mrs. Gibson herself conversing. 
“ Spring ! Primavera, as the Italians call it,” the 
lady was saying. 


1 / 


4 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Preface . . . iii 

CHAPTER I 

Our Society i 

CHAPTER II 

The Captain 19 

CHAPTER III 

A Love Affair of Long Ago 42 

CHAPTER IV 

A Visit to an Old Bachelor 57 

CHAPTER V 

Old Letters 75 

J 

CHAPTER VI 

Poor Peter 9 1 

xxiii 


XXIV 


CONTENTS 


Visiting . . . 

PAGE 

CHAPTER VII 


CHAPTER VIII 

“Your Ladyship” 124 


Signor Brunoni 

CHAPTER IX 

144 

The Panic . . 

CHAPTER X 

r 59 

Samuel Brown . 

CHAPTER XI 


CHAPTER XII 


Engaged to be Married 199 

CHAPTER XIII 

Stopped Payment 214 


Friends in Need 

CHAPTER XIV 

A Happy Return 

* 

CHAPTER XV 


CHAPTER XVI 

Peace to Cranford 278 



Our </ociet\ 


y 


In the first place, ^Cranford is in possession of the 
Amazons'^ all the holders of houses, above a certain 
rent, are women. If a married couple come to settle 
in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears ; he 
is either fairly frightened to death by being the only 
man in the Cranford evening parties, or he is ac- 
counted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or 
closely engaged in business all the week in the great 
neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant 
only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever 
does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cran- 
ford. What could they do if they were there ? The 



2 


CRANFORD 


surgeon has his round of thirty miles, and sleeps at 
Cranford ; but every man cannot be a surgeon. For 
keeping the trim gardens full of choice flowers with- 
out a weed to speck them ; for frightening away little 
boys who look wistfully at the said flowers through 
the railings ; for rushing out at the geese that occa- 
sionally venture into the gardens if the gates are left 
open; for deciding all questions of literature and 
politics without troubling themselves with unneces- 
sary reasons or arguments ; for obtaining clear and 
correct knowledge of everybody’s affairs in the 
parish ; for keeping their neat maidservants in admira- 
ble order ; for kindness (somewhat dictatorial) to the 
poor, and real tender good offices to each other when- 
ever they are in distress, — the . ladies of Cranford 
are quite sufficient. “ A man,” as one of them ob- 
served to me once, “ is so in the way in the house ! ” 
Although the ladies of Cranford know all each other’s 
proceedings, they are exceedingly indifferent to each 
other’s opinions. Indeed, as each has her own indi- 
viduality, not to say eccentricity, pretty strongly 
developed, nothing is so easy as verbal retaliation ; 
but, somehow, goodwill reigns among them to a con- 
siderable degree. 

The Cranford ladies have only an occasional little 
quarrel, spirted out in a few peppery words and angry 
jerks of the head ; just enough to prevent the even 
tenor of their lives from becoming too flat. Their 
ckess is very independent of fashion ; as they observe, 
r What does it signify how we dress here at Cranford, 
where everybody knows us ? ” And if they go from 
home, their reason is equally cogent, “ What does it 


OUR SOCIETY 


3 


signify how we dress here, where nobody knows us ? 11 
The materials of their clothes are, in general, good 
and plain, and most of them are nearly as scrupulous 
as Miss Tyler, of cleanly memory ; but I will answer 
for it, the last gigot, the last tight and scanty petticoat 
in wear in England, was seen in Cranford — and seen 
without a smile^ 

I can testify to a magnificent family red silk um- 
brella, under which a gentle little spinster, left alone 
of many brothers and sisters, used to patter to church 
on rainy days. Have you any red silk umbrellas in 
London ? We had a tradition of the first that had 
ever been seen in Cranford ; and the little boys 
mobbed it, and called it “ a stick in petticoats.” It 
might have been the very red silk one I have de- 
scribed, held by a strong father over a troop of little 
ones ; the poor little lady — the survivor of all — 
could scarcely carry it. 

Then there were rules and regulations for visiting 
and calls ; and they were announced to any young 
people, who might be staying in the town, with all the 
solemnity with which the old Manx laws were read 
once a year on the Tinwald Mount. 

“ Our friends have sent to inquire how you are after 
your journey to-night, my dear” (fifteen miles in a 
gentleman’s carriage) ; “ they will give you some rest 
to-morrow, but the next day, I have no doubt, they 
will call ; so be at liberty after twelve — from twelve 
to three are our calling-hours.” 

Then, after they had called — 

“It is the third day ; I daresay your mamma has 
told you, my dear, never let more than three days 


4 


CRANFORD 


elapse between receiving a call and returning it ; and 
also, that you are never to stay longer than a quarter 
of an hour.” 



" A magnificent family red silk umbrella." 


“ But am I to look at my watch ? How am I to 
find out when a quarter of an hour has passed ? ” 
“You must keep thinking about the time, my dear, 
and not allow yourself to forget it in conversation.” 


OUR SOCIETY 


5 


As everybody had this rule in their minds, whether 
they received or paid a call, of course no absorbing 
subject was ever spoken about. We kept ourselves 
to short sentences or small talk, and were punctual 
to our time. 

I imagine that a few of the gentlefolks of Cranford 
were poor, and had some difficulty in making both 
ends meet ; but they were like the Spartans, and con- 
cealed their smart under a smiling face. We none 
of us spoke of money, because that subject savoured 
of commerce and trade and though some might be 
poor, we were all aristocratic. The Cranfordians 
had that kindly esprit de corps which made them 
overlook all deficiencies in success when some among 
them tried to conceal their poverty. When Mrs. For- 
rester, for instance, gave a party in her baby-house of 
a dwelling, and the little maiden disturbed the ladies 
on the sofa by a request that she might get the tea- 
tray out from underneath, every one took this novel 
proceeding as the most natural thing in the world, 
and talked on about household forms and ceremonies 
as if we all believed that our hostess had a regular 
servants 1 hall, second table, with housekeeper and 
steward, instead of the one little charity-school 
maiden, whose short ruddy arms could never have 
been strong enough to carry the tray upstairs if she 
had not been assisted in private by her mistress, who 
now sat in state, pretending not to know what cakes 
were sent up, though she knew, and we knew, and 
she knew that we knew, and we knew that she knew 
that we knew, she had been busy all the morning 
making tea-bread and sponge-cakes. 


6 


CRANFORD 


There were one or two consequences arising from 
this general but unacknowledg ed poverty, and this 
very much acknowledged gentility, which were not 
amiss, and which might be introduced into many 
circles of society to their great improvement. For 
instance, the inhabitants of Cranford kept early 
hours, and clattered home in their pattens, under the 
guidance of a lantern-bearer, about nine o'clock at 
night ; and the whole town was abed and asleep by 
half-past ten. Moreover, it was considered “vulgar” 
(a tremendous word in Cranford) to give anything 
expensive, in the way of eatable or drinkable, at the 
evening entertainments. Wafer bread-and-butter 
and sponge-biscuits were all that the Honourable 
Mrs. Jamieson gave ; and she was sister-in-law to the 
late Earl of Glenmire, although she did practise such 
“elegant economy.” 

“ Elegant economy ! ” How naturally one falls back 
into the phraseology of Cranford ! There, economy 
was always “elegant,” and money-spending always 
“ vulgar and ostentatious ” ; a sort of sour grapism 
which made us very peaceful and satisfied. I never 
shall forget the dismay felt when a certain Captain 
Brown came to live at Cranford, and openly spoke 
about his being poor — not in a whisper to an inti- 
mate friend, the doors and windows being previously 
closed, but in the public street ! in a loud military 
voice ! alleging his poverty as a reason for not taking 
a particular house. The ladies of Cranford were 
already rather moaning over the invasion of their 
territories by a man and a gentleman. He was a 
half-pay Captain, and had obtained some situation on 


OUR SOCIETY 


7 


a neighbouring railroad, which had been vehemently 
petitioned against by the little town ; and if, in addi- 
tion to his masculine gender, and his connection with 
the obnoxious railroad, he was so brazen as to talk 
of being poor — why, then, indeed, he must be sent 
to Coventry. Death was as true and as common as 
poverty ; yet people never spoke about that, loud out 
in the streets. It was a word not to be mentioned 
to ears polite. We had tacitly agreed to ignore that 
any with whom we associated on terms of visiting 
equality could ever be prevented by poverty from 
doing anything that they wished. If we walked to 
or from a party, it was because the night was so fine, 
or the air so refreshing, not because sedan chairs were 
expensive. If we wore prints, instead of summer 
silks, it was because we preferred a washing material ; 
and so on, till we blinded ourselves to the vulgar fact 
that we were, all of us, people of very moderate 
means. Of course, then, we did not know what to 
make of a man who could speak of poverty as if it 
was not a disgrace. Yet, somehow, Captain Brown 
made himself respected in Cranford, and was called 
upon, in spite of all resolutions to the contrary. I was 
surprised to hear his opinions quoted as authority at 
a visit which I paid to Cranford about a year after he 
had settled in the town. My own friends had been 
among the bitterest opponents of any proposal to 
visit the Captain and his daughters only twelve 
months before ; and now he was even admitted in 
the tabooed hours before twelve. True, it was to dis- 
cover the cause of a smoking chimney, before the fire 
was lighted ; but still Captain Brown walked upstairs, 


8 


CRANFORD 


nothing daunted, spoke in a voice too large for the 
room, and joked quite in the way of a tame man 
about the house. He had been blind to all the small 
slights, and omissions of trivial ceremonies, with 
which he had been received. He had been friendly, 
though the Cranford ladies had been cool ; he had 
answered small sarcastic compliments in good faith ; 
and with his manly frankness had overpowered all the 
shrinking which met him as a man who was not 
ashamed to be poor. And, at last, his excellent 
masculine common sense, and his facility in devising 
expedients to overcome domestic dilemmas, had 
gained him an extraordinary place as authority among 
the Cranford ladies. He himself went on in his 
course, as unaware of his popularity as he had been 
of the reverse ; and I am sure he was startled one 
day when he found his advice so highly esteemed as 
to make some counsel which he had given in jest to 
be taken in sober, serious earnest. 

It was on this subject : An old lady had an Alder- 
ney cow, which she looked upon as a daughter. You 
could not pay the short quarter-of-an-hour call with- 
out being told of the wonderful milk or wonderful 
intelligence of this animal. The whole town knew 
and kindly regarded Miss Betsy Barker’s Alderney ; 
therefore great was the sympathy and regret when, 
in an unguarded moment, the poor cow tumbled into 
a lime-pit. She moaned so loudly that she was soon 
heard and rescued ; but meanwhile the poor beast 
had lost most of her hair, and came out looking 
naked, cold, and miserable, in a bare skin. Every- 
body pitied the animal, though a few could not 


OUR SOCIETY 


9 


restrain their smiles at her droll appearance. Miss 
Betsy Barker absolutely cried with sorrow and dis- 
may ; and it was said she thought of trying a bath of 
oil. This remedy, perhaps, was recommended by 
some one of the number whose advice she asked ; 
but the proposal, if ever it was made, was knocked on 
the head by Captain Brown’s decided “ Get her a 
flannel waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma’am, if you 
wish to keep her alive. But my advice is, kill the 
poor creature at once.” 

Miss Betsy Barker dried her eyes and thanked the 
Captain heartily ; she set to work, and by and by all 
the town turned out to see the Alderney meekly going 
to her pasture, clad in dark gray flannel. I have 
watched her myself many a time. Do you ever see 
cows dressed in gray flannel in London? 

Captain Brown had taken a small house on the out- 
skirts of the town, where he lived with his two daugh- 
ters. He must have been upwards of sixty at the 
time of the first visit I paid to Cranford after I had 
left it as a residence. But he had a wiry, well-trained, 
elastic figure, a stiff military throw-back of his head, 
and a springing step, which made him appear much 
younger than he was. His eldest daughter looked 
almost as old as himself, and betrayed the fact that 
his real was more than his apparent age. Miss Brown 
must have been forty ; she had a sickly, pained, care- 
worn expression on her face, and looked as if the 
gayety of youth had long faded out of sight. Even 
when young she must have been plain and hard-fea- 
tured. Miss Jessie Brown was ten years younger 
than her sister, and twenty shades prettier. Her face 


10 


CRANFORD 


was round and dimpled. Miss Jenkyns once said, in 
a passion against Captain Brown (the cause of which 
I will tell you presently) , “ that she thought it was 
time for Miss Jessie to leave off her dimples, and not 



always to be trying to look like a child.” It was true 
there was something childlike in her face ; and there 
will be, I think, till she dies, though she should live 
to a hundred. Her eyes were large blue wondering 
eyes, looking straight at you ; her nose was unformed 
and snub, and her lips were red and dewy ; she wore 


OUR SOCIETY 


11 


her hair, too, in little rows of curls, which heightened 
this appearance. I do not know whether she was 
pretty or not ; but I liked her face, and so did every- 
body, and I do not think she could help her dimples. 
She had something of her father’s jauntiness of gait 
and manner ; and any female observer might detect 
a slight difference in the attire of the two sisters — 
that of Miss Jessie being about two pounds per annum 
more expensive than Miss Brown’s. Two pounds was 
a large sum in Captain Brown’s annual disbursements. 

Such was the impression made upon me by the 
Brown family when I first saw them all together in 
Cranford Church. The Captain I had met before — 
on the occasion of the smoky chimney, which he had 
cured by some simple alteration in the flue. In 
church, he held his double eye-glass to his eyes dur- 
ing the Morning Hymn, and then lifted up his head 
erect and sang out loud and joyfully. He made the 
responses louder than the clerk — an old man with a 
piping feeble voice, who, I think, felt aggrieved at the 
Captain’s sonorous bass, and quavered higher and 
higher in consequence. 

On coming out of church, the brisk Captain paid 
the most gallant attention to his two daughters. He 
nodded and smiled to his acquaintances ; but he 
shook hands with none until he had helped Miss 
Brown to unfurl her umbrella, had relieved her of her 
prayer-book, and had waited patiently till she, with 
trembling nervous hands, had taken up her gown to 
walk through the wet roads. 

I wondered what the Cranford ladies did with 
Captain Brown at their parties. We had often rejoiced, 


12 


CRANFORD 


in former days, that there was no gentleman to be 
attended to, and to find conversation for, at the card- 
parties. We had congratulated ourselves upon the 



snugness of the evenings ; and, in our love for gentility 
and distaste of mankind, we had almost persuaded our- 
selves that to be a man was to be “ vulgar ” ; so that 
when I found my friend and hostess, Miss Jenkyns, 


OUR SOCIETY 


13 


was going to have a party in my honour, and that 
Captain and the Miss Browns were invited, I wondered 
much what would be the course of the evening. Card- 
tables, with green-baize tops, were set out by daylight, 
just as usual ; it was the third week in November, so 
the evenings closed in about four. Candles and clean 
packs of cards w'ere arranged on each table. The fire 
was made up ; the neat maidservant had received her 
last directions ; and there we stood, dressed in our best, 
each with a candle-lighter in our hands, ready to dart 
at the candles as soon as the first knock came. Parties 
in Cranford were solemn festivities, making the ladies 
feel gravely elated as they sat together in their best 
dresses. As soon as three had arrived, we sat down 
to 11 Preference,” I being the unlucky fourth. The next 
four comers were put down immediately to another 
table ; and presently the tea-trays, which I had seen 
set out in the storeroom as I passed in the morning, 
were placed each on the middle of a card-table. The 
china was delicate egg-shell ; the old-fashioned silver 
glittered with polishing ; but the eatables were of the 
slightest description. While the trays were yet on the 
tables, Captain and the Miss Browns came in ; and I 
could see that, somehow or other, the Captain was a 
favourite with all the ladies present. Ruffled brows 
were smoothed, sharp voices lowered at his approach. 
Miss Brown looked ill, and depressed almost to 
gloom. Miss Jessie smiled as usual, and seemed 
nearly as popular as her father. He immediately and 
quietly assumed the man’s place in the room ; attended 
to every one’s wants, lessened the pretty maidservant’s 
labour by waiting on empty cups and bread-and-butter- 


14 


CRANFORD 


less ladies ; and yet did it all in so easy and dignified a 
manner, and so much as if it were a matter of course 
for the strong to attend to the weak, that he was a 
true man throughout. He played for threepenny 
points with as grave an interest as if they had been 
pounds ; and yet, in all his attention to strangers, he 
had an eye on his suffering daughter — for suffering I 
am sure she was, though to many eyes she might only 
appear to be irritable. Miss Jessie could not play 
cards, but she talked to the sitters-out, who, before her 
coming, had been rather inclined to be cross. She 
sang, too, to an old cracked piano, which I think had 
been a spinet in its youth. Miss Jessie sang “Jock o’ 
Hazeldean” a little out of tune ; but we were none of 
us musical, though Miss Jenkyns beat time, out of time, 
by way of appearing to be so. 

It was very good of Miss Jenkyns to do this ; for I 
had seen that, a little before, she had been a good deal 
annoyed by Miss Jessie Brown’s unguarded admission 
( d ftrofios of Shetland wool) that she had an uncle, 
her mother’s brother, who was a shopkeeper in Edin- 
burgh. Miss Jenkyns tried to drown this confession 
by a terrible cough — 'for the Honourable Mrs. Jamie- 
son was sitting at the card-table nearest Miss Jessie, 
and what would she say or think if she found out she 
was in the same room with a shopkeeper’s niece ! 
But Miss Jessie Brown (who had no tact, as we all 
agreed the next morning) would repeat the informa- 
tion, and assure Miss Pole she could easily get her 
the identical Shetland wool required, “ through my 
uncle, who has the best assortment of Shetland goods 
of any one in Edinbro’.” It was to take the taste of 


OUR SOCIETY 


15 


this out of our mouths, and the sound of this out of our 
ears, that Miss Jenkyns proposed music ; so I say again, 
it was very good of her to beat time to the song. 

When the trays reappeared with biscuits and wine, 
punctually at a quarter to nine, there was conversa- 
tion, comparing of cards, and talking over tricks ; but 
by and by Captain Brown sported a bit of literature. 

“ Have you seen any numbers of The Pickwick Pa- 
pers?"''' said he. (They were then publishing in 
parts.) “ Capital thing ! ” 

Now Miss Jenkyns was daughter of a deceased 
rector of Cranford ; and, on the strength of a number 
of manuscript sermons, and a pretty good library of 
divinity, considered herself literary, and looked upon 
any conversation about books as a challenge to her. 
So she answered and said, “Yes, she had seen them ; 
indeed, she might say she had read them.” 

“And what do you think of them?” exclaimed 
Captain Brown. “Aren’t they famously good? ” 

So urged, Miss Jenkyns could not but speak. 

“ I must say, I don’t think they are by any means 
equal to Dr. Johnson. Still, perhaps, the author is 
young. Let him persevere, and who knows what he 
may become if he will take the great Doctor for his 
model.” This was evidently too much for Captain 
Brown to take placidly ; and I saw the words on the 
tip of his tongue before Miss Jenkyns had finished 
her sentence. 

“It is quite a different sort of thing, my dear 
madam,” he began. 

“I am quite aware of that,” returned she. “And I 
make allowances, Captain Brown.” 


16 


CRANFORD 


“Just allow me to read you a scene out of this 
month’s number,” pleaded he. “ I had it only this 
morning, and I don’t think the company can have 
read it yet.” 



The account of the * swarry' 


“As you please,” said she, settling herself with 
an air of resignation. He read the account of the 
“swarry” which Sam Weller gave at Bath. Some 


OUR SOCIETY 


17 


of us laughed heartily, /did not dare, because I was 
staying in the house. Miss Jenkyns sat in patient 
gravity. When it was ended, she turned to me, and 
said, with mild dignity — 

“ F etch me Rasselas, my dear, out of the book- 
room.” 

When I brought it to her she turned to Captain 
Brown — 

“ Now allow me to read you a scene, and then the 
present company can judge between your favourite, 
Mr. Boz, and Dr. Johnson.” 

She read one of the conversations between Rasselas 
and Imlac, in a high-pitched majestic voice; and 
when she had ended she said, “ I imagine I am now 
justified in my preference of Dr. Johnson as a writer 
of fiction.” The Captain screwed his lips up, and 
drummed on the table, but he did not speak. She 
thought she would give a finishing blow or two. 

“ I consider it vulgar, and below the dignity of 
literature, to publish in numbers.” 

“ How was The Rambler published, ma’am? ’’asked 
Captain Brown, in a low voice, which I think Miss 
Jenkyns could not have heard. 

“Dr. Johnson’s style is a model for young begin- 
ners. My father recommended it to me when I began 
to write letters — I have formed my own style upon 
it ; I recommend it to your favourite.” 

“ I should be very sorry for him to exchange his 
style for any such pompous writing,” said Captain 
Brown. 

Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront, in a 
way of which the Captain had not dreamed. Episto- 


18 


CRANFORD 


lary writing she and her friends considered as her 
forte. Many a copy of many a letter have I seen 
written and corrected on the slate, before she “ seized 
the half-hour just previous to post-time to assure ” 
her friends of this or of that ; and Dr. Johnson was, 
as she skid, her model in these compositions. She 
drew herself up with dignity, and only replied to 
Captain Brown’s last remark by saying, with marked 
emphasis on every syllable, “ I prefer Dr. Johnson to 
Mr. Boz.” 

It is said — I won’t vouch for the fact — that Captain 
Brown was heard to say, sotto voce , u D — n Dr. John- 
son!” If he did, he was penitent afterwards, as he 
showed by going to stand near Miss Jenkyns’s arm- 
chair, and endeavouring to beguile her into conversa- 
tion on some more pleasing subject. But she was 
inexorable. The next day she made the remark I 
have mentioned about Miss Jessie’s dimples. 


II. 


It was impossible to live a month at Cranford and 
not know the daily habits of each resident ; and long 
before my visit was ended I knew much concerning 
the whole Brown trio. There was nothing new to be 
discovered respecting their poverty; for they had 
spoken simply and openly about that from the very 
first. They made no mystery of the necessity for 
their being economical. All that remained to be dis- 
covered was the Captain’s infinite kindness of heart, 
and the various modes in which, unconsciously to 
himself, he manifested it. Some little anecdotes 
were talked about for some time after they occurred. 
As we did not read much, and as all the ladies were 
pretty well suited with servants, there was a dearth of 
subjects for conversation. We therefore discussed 
the circumstance of the Captain taking a poor old 
woman’s dinner out of her hands one very slippery 
Sunday. He had met her returning from the bake- 
house as he came from church, and noticed her pre- 
carious footing; and, with the grave dignity with 
which he did everything, he relieved her of her bur- 

19 


20 


CRANFORD 


den, and steered along the street by her side, carry- 
ing her baked mutton and potatoes safely home. 
This was thought very eccentric; and it was rather 
expected that he would pay a round of calls, on the 
Monday morning, to explain and apologise to the 
Cranford sense of propriety : but he did no such 
thing ; and then it was decided that he was ashamed, 
and was keeping out of sight. In a kindly pity for 
him we began to say, “ After all, the Sunday morn- 
ing’s occurrence showed great goodness of heart,” 
and it was resolved that he should be comforted on 
his next appearance amongst us; but, lo! he came 
down upon us, untouched by any sense of shame, 
speaking loud and bass' as ever, his head thrown 
back, his wig as jaunty and well-curled as usual, and 
we were obliged to conclude he had forgotten all 
about Sunday. 

Miss Pole and Miss Jessie Brown had set up a kind 
of intimacy on the strength of the Shetland wool and 
the new knitting stitches ; so it happened that when 
I went to visit Miss Pole I saw more of the Browns 
than I had done while staying with Miss Jenkyns, 
who had never got over what she called Captain 
Brown’s disparaging remarks upon Dr. Johnson as a 
writer of light and agreeable fiction. I found that 
Miss Brown was seriously ill of some lingering incur- 
able complaint, the pain occasioned by which gave 
the uneasy expression to her face that I had taken 
for unmitigated crossness. Cross, tod, she was at 
times, when the nervous irritability occasioned by 
her disease became past endurance. Miss Jessie 
bore with her at these times, even more patiently 


THE CAPTAIN 


21 


than she did with the bitter self-upbraidings by which 
they were invariably succeeded. Miss Brown used 
to accuse herself, not merely of hasty and irritable 
temper, but also of being the cause why her father 
and sister were obliged to pinch, in order to allow 
her the small luxuries which were necessaries in her 
condition. She would so fain have made sacrifices 
for them, and have lightened their cares, that the 
original generosity of her disposition added acerbity 
to her temper. All this was borne by Miss Jessie 
and her father with more than placidity — with abso- 
lute tenderness. I forgave Miss Jessie her singing 
out of tune, and her juvenility of dress, when I saw 
her at home. I came to perceive that Captain 
Brown’s dark Brutus wig and padded coat (alas ! too 
often threadbare) were remnants of the military 
smartness of his youth, which he now wore uncon- 
sciously. He was a man of infinite resources, gained 
in his barrack experience. As he confessed, no one 
could black his boots to please him except himself : 
but, indeed, he was not above saving the little maid- 
servant’s labours in every way — knowing, most 
likely, that his daughter’s illness made the place a 
hard one. 

He endeavoured to make peace with Miss Jenkyns, 
soon after the memorable dispute I have named, by 
a present of a wooden fire-shovel (his own making), 
having heard her say how much the grating of an 
iron one annoyed her. She received the present 
with cool gratitude, and thanked him formally. 
When he was gone, she bade me put it away in the 
lumber-room ; feeling, probably, that no present from 


22 


CRANFORD 


a man who preferred Mr. Boz to Dr. Johnson could 
be less jarring than an iron fire-shovel. 

Such was the state of things when I left Cranford 



“ No one could black his boots except himself. " 


and went to Drumble. I had, however, several corre- 
spondents who kept me an fait as to the proceedings 
of the dear little town. There was Miss Pole, who 
was becoming as much absorbed in crochet as she 


THE CAPTAIN 


23 


had been once in knitting, and the burden of whose 
letter was something like, “ But don’t you forget the 
white worsted at Flint’s ” of the old song ; for at the 
end of every sentence of news came a fresh direction 
as to some crochet commission which I was to exe- 
cute for her. Miss Matilda Jenkyns (who did not 
mind being called Miss Matty when Miss Jenkyns 
was not by) wrote nice, kind, rambling letters, now 
and then venturing into an opinion of her own ; but 
suddenly pulling herself up, and either begging me 
not to name what she had said, as Deborah thought 
differently, and she knew, or else putting in a post- 
script to the effect that, since writing the above, she 
had been talking over the subject with Deborah, and 
was quite convinced that, etc. — (here probably fol- 
lowed a recantation of every opinion she had given 
in the letter). Then came Miss Jenkyns — Deborah, 
as she liked Miss Matty to call her, her father having 
once said that the Hebrew name ought to be so pro- 
nounced. I secretly think she took the Hebrew 
prophetess for a model in character ; and, indeed, she 
was not unlike the stern prophetess in some ways, 
making allowance, of course, for modern customs 
and difference in dress. Miss Jenkyns wore a cravat, 
and a little bonnet like a jockey-cap, and altogether 
had the appearance of a strong-minded woman; 
although she would have despised the modern idea 
of women being equal to men. Equal, indeed ! she 
knew they were superior. But to return to her letters. 
Everything in them was stately and grand, like her- 
self. I have been looking them over (dear Miss 
Jenkyns, how I honoured her !), and I will give an 


24 


CRANFORD 


extract, more especially because it relates to our friend 
Captain Brown — 

“The Honourable Mrs. Jamieson has only just 
quitted me ; and, in the course of conversation, she 
communicated to me the intelligence that she had 
yesterday received a call from her revered husband’s 
quondam friend, Lord Mauleverer. You will not 
easily conjecture what brought his lordship within the 
precincts of our little town. It was to see Cap- 
tain Brown, with whom, it appears, his lordship was 
acquainted in the 1 plumed wars, 1 and who had the 
privilege of averting destruction from his lordship’s 
head, when some great peril was impending over it, 
off the misnomered Cape of Good Hope. You know 
our friend the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson’s deficiency 
in the spirit of innocent curiosity ; and you will there- 
fore not be so much surprised when I tell you she was 
quite unable to disclose to me the exact nature of the 
peril in question. I was anxious, I confess, to ascer- 
tain in what manner Captain Brown, with his limited 
establishment, could receive so distinguished a guest ; 
and I discovered that his lordship retired to rest, 
and, let us hope, to refreshing slumbers, at the Angel 
Hotel ; but shared the Brunonian meals during the 
two days that he honoured Cranford with his august 
presence. Mrs. Johnson, our civil butcher’s wife, 
informs me that Miss Jessie purchased a leg of lamb ; 
but, besides this, I can hear of no preparation what- 
ever to give a suitable reception to so distinguished 
a visitor. Perhaps they entertained him with ‘the 
'feast of reason and the flow of soul’ ; and to us, who 
are acquainted with Captain Brown’s sad want of 


THE CAPTAIN 


25 


relish for ‘ the pure wells of English undefiled,’ it 
may be matter for congratulation that he has had the 
opportunity of improving his taste by holding con- 
verse with an elegant and refined member of the 
British aristocracy. But from some mundane failings 
who is altogether free?” 

Miss Pole and Miss Matty wrote to me by the same 
post. Such a piece of news as Lord Mauleverer’s 
visit was not to be lost on the Cranford letter-writers ; 
they made the most of it. Miss Matty humbly apolo- 
gised for writing at the same time as her sister, who 
was so much more capable than she to describe the 
honour done to Cranford ; but, in spite of a little bad 
spelling, Miss Matty’s account gave me the best idea 
of the commotion occasioned by his lordship’s visit, 
after it had occurred ; for, except the people at the 
Angel, the Browns, Mrs. Jamieson, and a little lad his 
lordship had sworn at for driving a dirty hoop against 
the aristocratic legs, I could not hear of any one with 
whom his lordship had held conversation. 

My next visit to Cranford was in the summer. 
There had been neither births, deaths, nor marriages 
since I was there last. Everybody lived in the same 
house, and wore pretty nearly the same well-preserved 
old-fashioned clothes. The greatest event was, that 
the Miss Jenkynses had purchased a new carpet for 
the drawing-room. Oh, the busy work Miss Matty 
and I had in chasing the sunbeams, as they fell in an 
afternoon right down on this carpet through the 
blindless window! We spread newspapers over the 
places, and sat down to our book or our work; and 
lo ! in a puarter of an hour the sun had moved, and 


26 


CRANFORD 


was blazing away on a fresh spot ; and down again 
we went on our knees to alter the position of the 
newspapers. We were very busy, too, one whole 



" One with whom his lordship held . — jr-— 

conversation ‘■/iT y.c ?<■ 

morning, before Miss Jenkyns gave her party, in fol- 
lowing her directions, and in cutting out and stitch- 
ing together pieces of newspaper so as to form little 
paths to every chair set for the expected visitors, lest 
their shoes might dirty or defile the purity of the car- 


THE CAPTAIN 


27 


pet. Do you make paper paths for every guest to 
walk upon in London? 

Captain Brown and Miss Jerfkyns were not very 
cordial to each other. The literary dispute, of which 
I had seen the beginning, was a “ raw,” the slightest 
touch on which made them wince. It was the only 
difference of opinion they had ever had ; but that dif- 
ference was enough. Miss Jenkyns could not refrain 
from talking at Captain Brown ; and, though ne did 
not reply, he drummed with his fingers, which action 
she felt and resented as very disparaging to Dr. John- 
son. He was rather ostentatious in his preference of 
the writings of Mr. Boz ; would walk through the 
streets so absorbed in them that he all but ran against 
Miss Jenkyns; and though his apologies were ear- 
nest and sincere, and though he did not, in fact, do 
more than startle her and himself, she owned to me 
she had rather he had knocked her down, if he had 
only been reading a higher style of literature. The 
poor, brave Captain ! he looked older, and more worn, 
and his clothes were very threadbare. But he seemed 
as bright and cheerful as ever, unless he was asked 
about his daughter’s health. 

“ She suffers a great deal, and she must suffer more ; 
we do what we can to alleviate her pain ; — God’s will 
be done ! ” He took off his hat at these last words. 
I found, from Miss Matty, that everything had been 
done, in fact. A medical man, of high repute in that 
country neighbourhood, had been sent for, and every 
injunction he had given was attended to, regardless 
of expense. Miss Matty was sure they denied them- 
selves many things in order to make the invalid com- 


28 


CRANFORD 


fortable ; but they never spoke about it ; and as for 
Miss Jessie! — “I really think she’s an angel,” said 
poor Miss Matty, quite overcome. “ To see her way 
of bearing with Miss Brown’s crossness, and the 
bright face she puts on after she’s been sitting up a 
whole night and scolded about half of it, is quite 
beautiful. Yet she looks as neat and as ready to 
welcome the Captain at breakfast-time as if she had 
been asleep in the Queen’s bed all night. My dear ! 
you could never laugh at her prim little curls or her 
pink bows again if you saw her as I have done.” I 
could only feel very penitent, and greet Miss Jessie 
with double respect when I met her next. She looked 
faded and pinched ; and her lips began to quiver, as 
if she was very weak, when she spoke of her sister. 
But she brightened, and sent back the tears that were 
glittering in her pretty eyes, as she said — 

“ But, to be sure, what a town Cranford is for kind- 
ness! I don’t suppose any one has a better dinner 
than usual cooked, but the best part of all comes in 
a little covered basin for my sister. The poor people 
will leave their earliest vegetables at our door for her. 
They speak short and gruff, as if they were ashamed 
of it ; but I am sure it often goes to my heart to see 
their thoughtfulness.” The tears now came back and 
overflowed ; but after a minute or two she began to 
scold herself, and ended by going away the same 
cheerful Miss Jessie as ever. 

“ But why does not this Lord Mauleverer do some- 
thing for the man who saved his life?” said I. 

“ Why, you see, unless Captain Brown has some 
reason for it, he never speaks about being poor ; and 


THE CAPTAIN 


29 


he walked along by his lordship looking as happy and 
cheerful as a prince ; and as they never called at- 
tention to their dinner by apologies, and as Miss 
Brown was better that day, and all seemed bright, 
I daresay his lordship never knew how much care 
there was in the background. He did send game in 
the winter pretty often, but now he is gone abroad.” 

I had often occasion to notice the use that was 
made of fragments and small opportunities in Cran- 
ford : the rose-leaves that were gathered ere they fell 
to make into a pot-pourri for some one who had no 
garden ; the little bundles of lavender-flowers sent to 
strew the drawers of some town-dweller, or to burn in 
the chamber of some invalid. Things that many 
would despise, and actions which it seemed scarcely 
worth while to perform, were all attended to in Cran- 
ford. Miss Jenkyns stuck an apple full of cloves, to 
be heated and smell pleasantly in Miss Brown’s room ; 
and as she put in each clove she uttered a Johnsonian 
sentence. Indeed, she never could think of the 
Browns without talking Johnson; and, as they were 
seldom absent from her thoughts just then, I heard 
many a rolling three-piled sentence. 

Captain Brown called one day to thank Miss Jen- 
kyns for many little kindnesses, which I did not 
know until then that she had rendered. He had sud- 
denly become like an old man ; his deep bass voice 
had a quavering in it, his eyes looked dim, and the 
lines on his face were deep. He did not — could not 
— speak cheerfully of his daughter’s state, but he 
talked with manly, pious resignation, and not much. 
Twice over he said, “What Jessie had been to us, 


30 


CRANFORD 


God only knows ! ” and after the second time, he got 
up hastily, shook hands all round without speaking, 
and left the room. 

That afternoon we perceived little groups in the 
street, all listening with faces aghast to some tale or 
other. Miss Jenkyns wondered what could be the 
matter for 1 some time before she took the undignified 
step of sending Jenny out to inquire. 

Jenny came back with a white face of terror. “ Oh, 
ma’am! oh, Miss Jenkyns, ma’am ! Captain Brown is 
killed by them nasty cruel railroads ! ” and she burst 
into tears. She, along with many others, had expe- 
rienced the poor Captain’s kindness. 

“How? — where — where? Good God! Jenny, 
don’t waste time in crying, but tell us something.” 
Miss Matty rushed out into the street at once, and 
collared the man who was telling the tale. 

“ Come in — come to my sister at once, — Miss 
Jenkyns, the rector’s daughter. Oh, man, man! — 
say it is not true,” she cried, as she brought the 
affrighted carter, sleeking down his hair, into the 
drawing-room, where he stood with his wet boots on 
the new carpet, and no one regarded it. 

“ Please, mum, it is true. I seed it myself,” and 
he shuddered at the recollection. “ The Captain was 
a-reading some new book as he was deep in, a-waiting 
for the down train ; and there was a little lass as 
wanted to come to its mammy, and gave its sister the 
slip, and came toddling across the line. And he 
looked up sudden, at the sound of the train coming, 
and seed the child, and he darted on the line and 
cotched it up, and his foot slipped, and the train came 


THE CAPTAIN 


31 


over him in no time. Oh Lord, Lord ! Mum, it’s 
quite true — and they’ve come over to tell his daugh- 
ters. The child’s safe, though, with only a bang on 



its shoulder, as he threw it to its mammy. Poor 
Captain would be glad of that, mum, wouldn’t he ? 
God bless him ! ” The great rough carter puckered 
up his manly face, and turned away to hide his tears. 
I turned to Miss Jenkyns. She looked very ill, as if 


32 


CRANFORD 


she were going to faint, and signed to me to open 
the window. 

“Matilda, bring me my bonnet. I must go to 
those girls. God pardon me, if ever I have spoken 
contemptuously to the Captain ! ” 

Miss Jenkyns arrayed herself to go out, telling Miss 
Matilda to give the man a glass of wine. While she 
was away Miss Matty and I huddled over the fire, 
talking in a low and awestruck voice. I know we 
cried quietly all the time. 

Miss Jenkyns came home in a silent mood, and we 
durst not ask her many questions. She told us 
that Miss Jessie had fainted, and that she and Miss 
Pole had had some difficulty in bringing her round ; 
but that, as soon as she recovered, she begged one of 
them to go and sit with her sister. 

“ Mr. Hoggins says she cannot live many days, and 
she shall be spared this shock,” said Miss Jessie, 
shivering with feelings to which she dared not give 
way. 

“ But how can you manage, my dear ? ” asked Miss 
Jenkyns; “you cannot bear up, she must see your 
tears.” 

“God will help me — I will not give way — she 
was asleep when the news came ; she may be asleep 
yet. She would be so utterly miserable, not merely 
at my father’s death, but to think of what would 
become of me ; she is so good to me.” She looked 
up earnestly in their faces with her soft true eyes, 
and Miss Pole told Miss Jenkyns afterwards she could 
hardly bear it, knowing, as she did, how Miss Brown 
treated her sister. 


THE CAPTAIN 


33 


However, it was settled according to Miss Jessie’s 
wish. Miss Brown was to be told her father had 
been summoned to take a short journey on railway 
business. They had managed it in some way — 
Miss Jenkyns could not exactly say how. Miss Pole 
was to stop with Miss Jessie. Mrs. Jamieson had 
sent to inquire. And this was 'all we heard that 
night; and a sorrowful night it was. The next day 
a full account of the fatal accident was in the county 
paper which Miss Jenkyns took in. Her eyes were 
very weak, she said, and she asked me to read it. 
When I came to the “gallant gentleman was deeply 
engaged in the perusal of a number of Pickwick , 
which he had just received,” Miss Jenkyns shook her 
head long and solemnly, and then sighed out, “ Poor, 
dear, infatuated man ! ” 

The corpse was to be taken from the station to 
the parish church, there to be interred. Miss Jessie 
had set her heart on following it to the grave ; and 
no dissuasives could aljer her resolve- Her restraint 
upon herself made her almost obstinate ; she resisted 
all Miss Pole’s entreaties and Miss Jenkyns’s advice. 
At last Miss Jenkyns gave up the point ; and after a 
silence, which I feared portended some deep displeas- 
ure against Miss Jessie, Miss Jenkyns said she should 
accompany the latter to the funeral. 

“ It is not fit for you to go alone. It would be 
against both propriety and humanity were I to allow 
it.” 

Miss Jessie seemed as if she did not half like this 
arrangement ; but her obstinacy, if she had any, had 
been exhausted in her determination to go to the 


34 


CRANFORD 


interment. She longed, poor thing, I have no doubt, 
to cry alone over the grave of the dear father to 
whom she had been all in all, and to give way, for 
one little half-hour, uninterrupted by sympathy and 
unobserved by friendship. But it was not to be. 
That afternoon Miss Jenkyns sent out for a yard of 
black crape, and employed herself busily in trimming 
the little black silk bonnet I have spoken about. 
When it was finished she put it on, and looked at us 
for approbation — admiration she despised. I was 
full of sorrow, but, by one of those whimsical thoughts 
which come unbidden into our heads, in times of 
deepest grief, I no sooner saw the bonnet than I was 
reminded of a helmet ; and in that hybrid bonnet, 
half-helmet, half-jockey cap, did Miss Jenkyns at- 
tend Captain Brown’s funeral, and, I believe, sup- 
ported Miss Jessie with a tender indulgent firmness 
which was invaluable,, allowing her to weep her pas- 
sionate fill before they left. 

Miss Pole, Miss Matty, and I, meanwhile, attended 
to Miss Brown : and hard work we found it to relieve 
her querulous and never-ending complaints. But if 
we were so weary and dispirited, what must Miss 
Jessie have been ! Yet she came back almost calm, 
as if she had gained a new strength. She put off 
her mourning dress, and came in, looking pale and 
gentle, thanking us each with a soft long pressure of 
the hand. She could even smile — a faint, sweet, 
wintry smile — as if to reassure us of her power to 
endure : but her look made our eyes fill suddenly 
with tears, more than if she had cried outright. 

It was settled that Miss Pole was to remain with 


THE CAPTAIN 


35 


her all the watching livelong night ; and that Miss 
Matty and I were to return in the morning to re- 
lieve them, and give Miss Jessie the opportunity 
for a few hours of sleep. But when the morning 
came, Miss Jenkyns appeared at the breakfast-table, 
equipped in her helmet-bonnet, and ordered Miss 
Matty to stay at home, as she meant to go and help 
to nurse. She was evidently in a state of great 
friendly excitement, which she showed by eating her 
breakfast standing, and scolding the household all 
round. 

No nursing — no energetic strong-minded woman 
could help Miss Brown now. There was that in the 
room as we entered which was stronger than us all, 
and made us shrink into solemn awestruck helpless- 
ness. Miss Brown was dying. We hardly knew her 
voice it was so devoid of the complaining tone we had 
always associated with it. Miss Jessie told me after- 
wards that it, and her face too, were just what they 
had been formerly, when her mother’s death left her 
the young anxious head of the family, of whom only 
Miss Jessie survived. 

She was conscious of her sister’s presence, though 
not, I think, of ours. We stood a little behind the 
curtain: Miss Jessie knelt with her face near her 
sister’s, in order to catch the last soft awful 
whispers. 

“Oh, Jessie! Jessie! How selfish I have been! 
God forgive me for letting you sacrifice yourself for 
me as you did ! I have so loved you — and yet I have 
thought only of myself. God forgive me ! ” 

“ Hush, love! hush!” said Miss Jessie sobbing. 


36 


CRANFORD 


“And my father! my dear, dear father! I will not 
complain now, if God will give me strength to be pa- 
tient. But, oh, Jessie! tell my father how I longed 
and yearned to see him at last, and to ask his forgive- 
ness. He can never know now how I loved him — 
oh ! if I might but tell him, before I die ! What a life 
of sorrow his has been, and I have done so little to 
cheer him ! ” 

A light came into Miss Jessie’s face. “Would it 
comfort you, dearest, to think that he does know? — 
would it comfort you, love, to know that his cares, his 
sorrows ” Her voice quivered, but she stead- 

ied it into calmness, — “Mary! he has gone before 
you to the place where the weary are at rest. He 
knows now how you loved him.” 

A strange look, which was not distress, came over 
Miss Brown’s face. She did not speak for some time, 
but then we saw her lips form the words, rather than 
heard the sound — “ Father, mother, Harry, Archie ; ” 
— then, as if it were a new idea throwing a filmy 
shadow over her darkened mind — “ But you will be 
alone, Jessie! ” 

Miss Jessie had been feeling this all during the si- 
lence, I think ; for the tears rolled down her cheeks 
like rain at these words, and she could not answer at 
first. Then she put her hands together tight, and 
lifted them up, and said — but not to us — 

“Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him.” 

In a few moments more Miss Brown lay calm and 
still — never to sorrow or murmur more. 

After this second funeral, Miss Jenkyns insisted 
that Miss Jessie should come to stay with her rather 


THE CAPTAIN 


37 


than go back to the desolate house, which, in fact, we 
learned from Miss Jessie, must now be given up, as 
she had not wherewithal to maintain it. She had 
something above twenty pounds a-year, besides the 
interest of the money for which the furniture would 
sell ; but she could not live upon that : and so we 
talked over her qualifications for earning money. 

“I can sew neatly,” said she, “and I like nursing. 
I think, too, I could manage a house, if any one would 
try me as housekeeper ; or I would go into a shop as 
saleswoman, if they would have patience with me at 
first.” 

Miss Jenkyns declared, in an angry voice, that she 
should do no such thing ; and talked to herself about 
“ some people having no idea of their rank as a cap- 
tain’s daughter,” nearly an hour afterwards, when she 
brought Miss Jessie up a basin of delicately-made 
arrow-root, and stood over her like a dragoon until 
the last spoonful was finished : then she disappeared. 
Miss Jessie began to tell me some more of the plans 
which had suggested themselves to her, and insensibly 
fell into talking of the days that were past and gone, 
and interested me so much I neither knew nor heeded 
how time passed. We were both startled when Miss 
Jenkyns reappeared, and caught us crying. I was 
afraid lest she would be displeased, as she often said 
that crying hindered digestion, and I knew she wanted 
Miss Jessie to get strong; but, instead, she looked 
queer and excited, and fidgeted round us without 
saying anything. At last she spoke. 

“ I have been so much startled — no, I’ve not been 
at all startled — don’t mind me, my dear Miss Jessie 


38 


CRANFORD 


— I’ve been very much surprised — in fact, I’ve had a 

caller, whom you knew once, my dear Miss Jessie 11 

Miss Jessie went very white, then flushed scarlet, 
and looked eagerly at Miss Jenkyns. 

“ A gentleman, my dear, who wants to know if you 
would see him . 11 

“ Is it? — it is not 11 stammered out Miss Jessie 

— and got no farther. 

“This is his card , 11 said Miss Jenkyns, giving it to 
Miss Jessie ; and while her head was bent over it, 
Miss Jenkyns went through a series of winks and odd 
faces to me, and formed her lips into a long sentence, 
of which, of course, I could not understand a word. 

“May he come up? 11 asked Miss Jenkyns at last. 

“Oh yes! certainly ! 11 said Miss Jessie, as much as 
to say, this is your house, you may show any visitor 
where you like. She took up some knitting of Miss 
Matty’s and began to be very busy, though I could see 
how she trembled all over. 

Miss Jenkyns rang the bell, and told the servant 
who answered it to show Major Gordon upstairs ; and, 
presently, in walked a tall, fine, frank-looking man of 
forty or upwards. He shook hands with Miss Jessie ; 
but he could not see her eyes, she kept them so fixed 
on the ground. Miss Jenkyns asked me if I would 
come and help her to tie up the preserves in the store- 
room ; and, though Miss Jessie plucked at my gown, 
and even looked up at me with begging eye, I durst 
not refuse to go where Miss Jenkyns asked. Instead 
of tying up preserves in the store-room, however, we 
went to talk in the dining-room ; and there Miss 
Jenkyns told me what Major Gordon had told her; — 


THE CAPTAIN 


39 


how he had served in the same regiment with Captain 
Brown, and had become acquainted with Miss Jessie, 
then a sweet-looking blooming girl of eighteen ; how 



He shook hands with Miss Jessie 


the acquaintance had grown into love on his part, 
though it had been some years before he had spoken ; 
how, on becoming possessed, through the will of an 
uncle, of a good estate in Scotland, he had offered and 
been refused, though with so much agitation and evi- 


40 


CRANFORD 


dent distress that he was sure she was not indifferent 
to him ; and* how he had discovered that the obstacle 
was the fell disease which was, even then, too surely 
threatening her sister. She had mentioned that the 
surgeons foretold intense suffering ; and there was no 
one but herself to nurse her poor Mary, or cheer and 
comfort her father during the time of illness. They 
had had long discussions ; and on her refusal to pledge 
herself to him as his wife when all should be over, he 
had grown angry, and broken off entirely, and gone 
abroad, believing that she was a cold-hearted person 
whom he would do well to forget. He had been 
travelling in the East, and was on his return home 
when, at Rome, he saw the account of Captain Brown’s 
death in Galignani. 

Just then Miss Matty, who had been out all the 
morning, and had only lately returned to the house, 
burst in with a face of dismay and outraged propriety. 

“ Oh, goodness me! ” she said. “ Deborah, there’s 
a gentleman sitting in the drawing-room with his arm 
round Miss Jessie’s waist! ” Miss Matty’s eyes looked 
large with terror. 

Miss Jenkyns snubbed her down in an instant. 

“ The most proper place in the world for his arm 
to be in. Go away, Matilda, and mind your own busi- 
ness.” This from her sister, who had hitherto been 
a model of feminine decorum, was a blow for poor 
Miss Matty, and with a double shock she left the 
room. 

The last time I ever saw poor Miss Jenkyns was 
many years after this. Mrs. Gordon had kept up a 
warm and affectionate intercourse with all at Cranford. 


THE CAPTAIN 


41 


Miss Jenkyns, Miss Matty, and Miss Pole had all been 
to visit her, and returned with wonderful accounts of 
her house, her husband, her dress, and her looks. 
For, with happiness, something of her early bloom 
returned ; she had been a year or two younger than 
we had taken her for. Her eyes were always lovely, 
and, as Mrs. Gordon, her dimples were not out of 
place. At the time to which I have referred, when I 
last saw Miss Jenkyns, that lady was old and feeble, 
and had lost something of her strong mind. Little 
Flora Gordon was staying with the Misses Jenkyns, 
and when I came in she was reading aloud to Miss 
Jenkyns, who lay feeble and changed on the sofa. 
Flora put down The Rambler when I came in. 

“ Ah! ” said Miss Jenkyns, “you find me changed, 
my dear. I can’t see as I used to do. If Flora were 
not here to read to me, I hardly know how I should 
get through the day. Did you ever read The Rambler ? 
It’s a wonderful book — wonderful! and the most im- 
proving reading for Flora ” (which I daresay it would 
have been if she could have read half the words with- 
out spelling, and could have understood the meaning 
of a third), “ better than that strange old book, with the 
queer name, poor Captain Brown was killed for read- 
ing — that book by Mr. Boz, you know — Old Poz ; 
when I was a girl — but that’s a long time ago — I 
acted Lucy in Old PozT She babbled on long enough 
for Flora to get a good long spell at the Christmas 
Carol , which Miss Matty had left on the table. 



I thought that probably my connection with Cran- 
ford would cease after Miss Jenkyn’s death ; at least, 
that it would have to be kept up by correspondence, 
which bears much the same relation to personal inter- 
course that the books of dried plants I sometimes see 
(“ Hortus Siccus,” I think they call the thing) do to 
the living and fresh flowers in the lanes and meadows. 
I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, by receiving a 
letter from Miss Pole (who had always come in for a 
supplementary week after my annual visit to Miss 
Jenkyns) proposing that I should go and stay with 
her ; and then, in a couple of days after my accept- 
ance, came a note from Miss Matty, in which, in a 
rather circuitous and very humble manner, she told 
me how much pleasure I should confer if I could spend 
a week or two with her, either before or after I had 
been at Miss Pole’s ; “for,” she said, “ since my dear 
sister’s death I am well aware I have no attractions to 
offer ; it is only to the kindness of my friends that I 
can owe their company.” 

Of course I promised to come to dear Miss Matty 
as soon as I had ended my visit to Miss Pole ; and 
42 


A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO 


43 


the day after my arrival at Cranford I went to see her, 
much wondering what the house would be like with- 
out Miss Jenkyns, and rather dreading the changed 
aspect of things. Miss Matty began to cry as soon 
as she saw me. She was evidently nervous from hav- 
ing anticipated my call. I comforted her as well as I 
could ; and I found the best consolation I could give 
was the honest praise that came from my heart as I 
spoke of the deceased. Miss Matty slowly shook her 
head over each virtue as it was named and attributed 
to her sister ; and at last she could not restrain the 
tears which had long been silently flowing, but hid her 
face behind her handkerchief, and sobbed aloud. 

“ Dear Miss Matty ! ” said I, taking her hand — for 
indeed I did not know in what way to tell her how 
sorry I was for her, left deserted in the world. She 
put down her handkerchief, and said — 

“My dear, I’d rather you did not call me Matty. 
She did not like it ; but I did many a thing she did 
not like, I’m afraid — and now she’s gone! If you 
please, my love, will you call me Matilda ? ” 

I promised faithfully, and began to practise the new 
name with Miss Pole that very day ; and, by degrees, 
Miss Matilda’s feeling on the subject was known 
through Cranford, and we all tried to drop the more 
familiar name, but with so little success that by and 
by we gave up the attempt. 

My visit to Miss Pole was very quiet. Miss Jenkyns 
had so long taken the lead in Cranford that, now she 
was gone, they hardly knew how to give a party. The 
Honourable Mrs. Jamieson, to whom Miss Jenkyns 
herself had always yielded the post of honour, was fat 


44 


CRANFORD 


and inert, and very much at the mercy of her old 
servants. If they chose that she should give a party, 
they reminded her of the necessity for so doing ; if not, 
she let it alone. There was all the more time for me 
to hear old-world stories from Miss Pole, while she sat 



“ If you please , my love , will you call me Matilda? 


knitting, and I making my father’s shirts. I always 
took a quantity of plain sewing to Cranford ; for, as we 
did not read much, or walk much, I found it a capital 
time to get through my work. One of Miss Pole’s 
stories related to a shadow of a love affair that was 
dimly perceived or suspected long years before. 


A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO 


45 


Presently, the time arrived when I was to remove to 
Miss Matilda’s house. I found her timid and anxious 
about the arrangements for my comfort. Many a time, 
while I was unpacking, did she come backwards and 
forwards to stir the fire, which burned all the worse for 
being so frequently poked. 

“ Have you drawers enough, dear ? ” asked she. “ I 
don’t know exactly how my sister used to arrange 
them. She had capital methods. I am sure she 
would have trained a servant in a week to make a better 
fire than this, and Fanny has been with me four 
months.” 

This subject of servants was a standing grievance, 
and I could not wonder much at it ; for if gentlemen 
were scarce, and almost unheard of in the “ genteel 
society” of Cranford, they or their counterparts — 
handsome young men — abounded in the lower classes. 
The pretty neat servant-maids had their choice of 
desirable “ followers ” ; and their mistresses, without 
having the sort of mysterious dread of men and mat- 
rimony that Miss Matilda had, might well feel a little 
anxious lest the heads of their comely maids should 
be turned by the joiner, or the butcher, or the gardener, 
who were obliged, by their callings, to come to the 
house, and who, as ill-luck would have it, were gener- 
ally handsome and unmarried. Fanny’s lovers, if she 
had any — and Miss Matilda suspected her of so many 
flirtations that, if she had not been very pretty, I 
should have doubted her having one — were a constant 
anxiety to her mistress. She was forbidden, by the 
articles of her engagement, to have u followers ” ; and 
though she had answered, innocently enough, doubling 


46 


CRANFORD 


up the hem of her apron as she spoke, u Please, ma’am, 

I never had more than one at a time,” Miss Mattie 
prohibited that one. But a vision of a man seemed 
to haunt the kitchen. Fanny assured me that it was 
all fancy, or else I should have said myself that I had 
seen a man’s coat-tails whisk into the scullery once, 
when I went on an errand into the store-room at night ; 
and another evening, when, our watches having 
stopped, I went to look at the clock, there was a very 
odd appearance, singularly like a young man squeezed 
up between the clock and the back of the open kitchen 
door; and I thought Fanny snatched up the can- 
dle very hastily, so as to throw the shadow on the 
clock face, while she very positively told me the time 
half an hour too early, as we found out afterwards by 
the church clock. But I did not add to Miss Matty’s 
anxieties by naming my suspicions, especially as 
Fanny said to me, the next day, that it was such a 
queer kitchen for having odd shadows about it, she 
really was almost afraid to stay ; “ for you know, miss,” 
she added, “ I don’t see a creature from six o’clock 
tea till Missus rings the bell for prayers at ten.” 

However, it so fell out that Fanny had to leave; 
and Miss Matilda begged me to stay and “ settle her ” 
with the new maid ; to which I consented, after I had 
heard from my father that he did not want me at home. 
The new servant was a rough, honest-looking country 
girl, who had only lived in a farm place before ; but I 
liked her looks when she came to be hired ; and I 
promised Miss Matilda to put her in the ways of the 
house. The said ways were religiously such as Miss 
Matilda thought her sister would approve. Many a 


A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO 


47 


domestic rule and regulation had been a subject of 
plaintive whispered murmur to me during Miss 
Jenkyns’s life; but now that she was gone, I do not 
think that even I, who was a favourite, durst have sug- 
gested an alteration. To give an instance: we con- 
stantly adhered to the forms which were observed, 
at meal times, in “my father, the rector’s house.” 
Accordingly, we had always wine and dessert; but 
the decanters were only filled when there was a party, 
and what remained was seldom touched, though we 
had two wine glasses apiece every day after dinner, 
until the next festive occasion arrived, when the state 
of the remainder wine was examined into in a family 
council. The dregs were often given to the poor ; but 
occasionally, when a good deal had been left at the 
last party (five months ago, it might be), it was added 
to some of a fresh bottle, brought up from the cellar. 
I fancy poor Captain Brown did not much like wine, 
for I noticed he never finished his first glass, and most 
military men take several. Then, as to our dessert, 
Miss Jenkyns used to gather currants and gooseberries 
for it herself, which I sometimes thought would have 
tasted better fresh from the trees ; but then, as Miss 
Jenkyns observed, there would have been nothing for 
dessert in summer-time. As it was, we felt very 
genteel with our two glasses apiece, and a dish of goose- 
berries at the top, of currants and biscuits at the sides, 
and two decanters at the bottom. When oranges 
came in, a curious proceeding was gone through. Miss 
Jenkyns did not like to cut the fruit ; for, as she ob- 
served, the juice all ran out nobody knew where ; suck- 
ing (only I think she used some more recondite word) 


48 


CRANFORD 


was in fact the only way of enjoying oranges ; but then 
there was the unpleasant association with a ceremony 
frequently gone through by little babies ; and so, after 
dessert, in orange season, Miss Jenkyns and Miss 
Matty used to rise up, possess themselves each of an 
orange in silence, and withdraw to the privacy of their 
own rooms to indulge in sucking oranges. 

I had once or twice tried, on such occasions, to 
prevail on Miss Matty to stay, and had succeeded in 
her sister’s lifetime. I held up a screen, and did not 
look, and, as she said, she tried not to make the noise 
very offensive ; but now that she was left alone, she 
seemed quite horrified when I begged her to remain 
with me in the warm dining-parlour, and enjoy her 
orange as she liked best. And so it was in every- 
thing. Miss J enkyns’s rules were made more stringent 
than ever, because the framer of them was gone where 
there could be no appeal. In all things else Miss 
Matilda was meek and undecided to a fault. I have 
heard Fanny turn her round twenty times in a morning 
about dinner, just as the little hussy chose ; and I some- 
times fancied she worked on Miss Matilda’s weakness 
in order to bewilder her, and to make her feel more in 
the power of her clever servant. I determined that 
I would not leave her till I had seen what sort of a 
person Martha was ; and, if I found her trustworthy, I 
would tell her not to trouble her mistress with every 
little decision. 

Martha was blunt and plain-spoken to a fault ; 
otherwise she was a brisk, well-meaning, but very 
ignorant girl. She had not been with us a week 
before Miss Matilda and I were astounded one morn- 


.A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO 


49 


ing by the receipt of a letter from a cousin of hers, 
who had been twenty or thirty years in India, and 
who had lately, as we had seen by the “ Army List,” 
returned to England, bringing with 'him an invalid 
wife who had never been introduced to her English 
relations. Major Jenkyns wrote to propose that he 
and his wife should spend a night at Cranford, on his 
way to Scotland — at the inn, if it did not suit Miss 
Matilda to receive them into her house ; in which 
case they should hope to be with her as much as pos- 
sible during the day. Of course, it must suit her, as 
she said ; for all Cranford knew that she had her 
sister’s bedroom at liberty ; but I am sure she wished 
the major had stopped in India and forgotten his 
cousins out and out. 

“ Oh ! how must I manage ? ” asked she helplessly. 
“If Deborah had been alive she would have known 
what to do with a gentleman-visitor. Must I put 
razors in his dressing-room? Dear ! dear ! and I’ve 
got none. Deborah would have had them. And 
slippers, and coat-brushes ? ” I suggested that prob- 
ably he would bring all these things with him. “ And 
after dinner, how am I to know when to get up and 
leave him to his wine ? Deborah would have done it 
so well ; she would have been quite in her element. 
Will he want coffee, do you think? ” I undertook the 
management of the coffee, and told her I would 
instruct Martha in the art of waiting — in which, it 
must be owned, she was terribly deficient — and that 
I had no doubt Major and Mrs. Jenkyns would under- 
stand the quiet mode in which a lady lived by herself 
in a country town. But she was sadly fluttered. I 


50 


CRANFORD 


made her empty her decanters and bring up two 
fresh bottles of wine. I wished I could have pre- 
vented her from being present at my instructions to 
Martha, for she frequently cut in with some fresh 
direction, muddling the poor girl’s mind, as she stood 
open-mouthed, listening to us both. 

“ Hand the vegetables round,” said I (foolishly, I 
see now — for it was aiming at more than we could 
accomplish with quietness and simplicity) ; and then, 
seeing her look bewildered, I added, “Take the vege- 
tables round to people, and let them help them- 
selves.” 

“ And mind you go first to the ladies,” put in Miss 
Matilda. “ Always go to the ladies before gentlemen 
when you are waiting.” 

“ I’ll do it as you tell me, ma’am,” said Martha ; 
“ but I like lads best.” 

We felt very uncomfortable and shocked at this 
speech of Martha’s, yet I don’t think she meant any 
harm ; and, on the whole, she attended very well to 
our directions, except that she “ nudged ” the major 
when he did not help himself as soon as she expected 
to the potatoes, while she was handing them round. 

The major and his wife were quiet, unpretending 
people enough when they did come ; languid, as all 
East Indians are, I suppose. We were rather dis- 
mayed at their bringing two servants with them, a 
Hindoo body-servant for the major, and a steady 
elderly maid for his wife ; but they slept at the inn, 
and took off a good deal of the responsibility by 
attending carefully to their master’s and mistress’s 
comfort. Martha, to be sure, had never ended her 


A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO 


51 


staring at the East Indian’s white turban and brown 
complexion, and I saw that Miss Matilda shrunk 
away from him a little as he waited at dinner. 
Indeed, she asked me, when they were gone, if he did 
not remind me of Blue Beard ? On the whole, the 
visit was most satisfactory, and is a subject of conver- 



sation even now with Miss Matilda ; at the time it 
greatly excited Cranford, and even stirred up the 
apathetic and Honourable Mrs. Jamieson to some 
expression of interest, when I went to call and thank 
her for the kind answers she had vouchsafed to Miss 
Matilda’s inquiries as to the arrangement of a gentle- 
man’s dressing-room — answers which, I must con- 


52 


CRANFORD 


fess, she had given in the wearied manner of the 
Scandinavian prophetess — 

Leave me, leave me to repose. 

And now I come to the love affair. 

It seems that Miss Pole had a cousin, once or twice 
removed, who had offered to Miss Matty long ago. 
Now this cousin lived four or five miles from Cran- 
ford on his own estate ; but his property was not 
large enough to entitle him to rank higher than a yeo- 
man ; or rather, with something of the “ pride which 
apes humility,” he had refused to push himself on, as 
so many of his class had done, into the ranks of the 
squires. He would not allow himself to be called 
Thomas Holbrook, Esq. ; he even sent back letters 
with this address, telling the postmistress at Cranford 
that his name was Mr. Thomas Holbrook, yeoman. 
He rejected all domestic innovations ; he would have 
the house-door stand open in summer and shut in 
winter, without knocker or bell to summon a servant. 
The closed fist or the knob of the stick did this office 
for him if he found the door locked. He despised 
every refinement which had not its root deep down in 
humanity. If people were not ill, he saw no necessity 
for moderating his voice. He spoke the dialect of 
the country in perfection, and constantly used it in 
conversation ; although Miss Pole (who gave me 
these particulars) added, that he read aloud more 
beautifully and with more feeling than any one she 
had ever heard, except the late rector. 

•“ And how came Miss Matilda not to marry him ?” 
asked I. 


A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO 


S3 


“Oh, I don’t know. She was willing enough, I 
think ; but you know cousin Thomas would not have 
been enough of a gentleman for the rector and Miss 
Jenkyns.” i 

“Well! but they were not to marry him,” said I 
impatiently. 

“ No ; but they did not like Miss Matty to marry 
below her rank. You know she was the rector’s 
daughter, and somehow they are related to Sir Peter 
Arley : Miss Jenkyns thought a deal of that.” 

“Poor Miss Matty ! ” said I. 

“ Nay, now, I don’t know anything more than that 
he offered and was refused. Miss Matty might not 
like him — and Miss Jenkyns might never have said 
a word — it is only a guess of mine.” 

“ Has she never seen him since ?” I inquired. 

“No, I think not. You see Woodley, cousin 
Thomas’s house, lies half-way between Cranford and 
Misselton ; and I know he made Misselton his mar- 
ket-town very soon after he had offered to Miss Matty ; 
and I don’t think he has been into Cranford above 
once or twice since — once, when I was walking with 
Miss Matty, in High Street, and suddenly she darted 
from me, and went up Shire Lane. A few minutes 
after I was startled by meeting cousin Thomas.” 

“ How old is he ? ” I asked, after a pause of castle- 
building. 

“He must be about seventy, I think, my dear,” 
said Miss Pole, blowing up my castle, as if by gun- 
powder, into small fragments. 

Very soon after — at least during my long visit to 
Miss Matilda — I had the opportunity of seeing Mr. 


54 


CRANFORD 


Holbrook ; seeing, too, his first encounter with his 
former love, after thirty or forty years 1 separation. I 
was helping to decide whether any of the new assort- 
ment of coloured silks which they had just received at 
the shop would do to match a gray and black mous- 
seline-de-laine that wanted a new breadth, when a 
tall, thin, Don Quixote-looking old man came into the 
shop for some woollen gloves. I had never seen the 
person (who was rather striking) before, and I 
watched him rather attentively while Miss Matty lis- 
tened to the shopman. The stranger wore a blue 
coat with brass buttons, drab breeches, and gaiters, 
and drummed with his fingers on the counter until he 
was attended to. When he answered the shop-boy’s 
question, “ What can I have the pleasure of showing 
you to-day, sir ? ” I saw Miss Matilda start, and then 
suddenly sit down ; and instantly I guessed who it 
was. She had made some inquiry which had to be 
carried round to the other shopman. 

“Miss Jenkyns wants the black sarsenet two-and 
twopence the yard ; ” and Mr. Holbrook had caught 
the name, and was across the shop in two strides. 

“Matty — Miss Matilda — Miss Jenkyns! God 
bless my soul ! I should not have known you. How 
are you ? how are you ? ” He kept shaking her 
hand in a way which proved the warmth of his 
friendship ; but he repeated so often, as if to himself, 
“ I should not have known you ! 11 that any sentimental 
romance which I might be inclined to build was quite 
done away with by his manner. 

However, he kept talking to us all the time we were 
in the shop ; and then waving the shopman with the 


A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO 


55 


unpurchased gloves on one side, with “ Another 
time, sir ! another time ! ” he walked honle with us. 
I am happy to say my client, Miss Matilda, also left 
the shop in an equally bewildered state, not having 



purchased either green or red silk. Mr. Holbrook 
was evidently full with honest loud-spoken joy at 
meeting his old love again ; he touched on the 
changes that had taken place ; he even spoke of Miss 
Jenkyns as “Your poor sister! Well, well! we 


56 


CRANFORD 


have all our faults ; 11 and bade us good-bye with 
many a hope that he should soon see Miss Matty 
again. She went straight to her room, and never 
came back until our early tea-time, when I thought 
she looked as if she had been crying. 


0\af)' tfv* /£. 



c Vrt t to C/2T T^cicfte/or. 

A few days after, a note came from Mr. Holbrook, 
asking us — impartially asking both of us — in a for- 
mal, old-fashioned style, to spend a day at his house 
— a long June day — for it was June now. He 
named that he had also invited his cousin, Miss Pole ; 
so that we might join in a fly, which could be put up 
at his house. 

I expected Miss Matty to jump at this invitation ; 
but, no ! Miss Pole and I had the greatest difficulty 
in persuading her to go. She thought it was im- 
proper ; and was even half annoyed when we utterly 
ignored th*e idea of any impropriety in her going with 
two other ladies to see her old lover. Then came a 
more serious difficulty. She did not think Deborah 
would have liked her to go. This took us half a day’s 
good hard talking to get over ; but, at the first sen- 
tence of relenting, I seized the opportunity, and wrote 
and despatched an acceptance in her name — fixing 
day and hour, that all might be decided and done with. 

57 


58 


CRANFORD 


The next morning she asked me if I would go 
down to the shop with her; and there, after much 
hesitation, we chose out three caps to be sent home 
and tried on, that the most becoming might be se- 
lected to take with us on Thursday. 

She was in a state of silent agitation all the way to 
Woodley. She had evidently never been there be- 
fore ; and, although she little dreamt I knew anything 
of her early story, I could perceive she was in a 
tremor at the thought of seeing the place which might 
have been her home, and round which it is probable 
that many of her innocent girlish imaginations had 
clustered. It was a long drive there, through paved 
jolting lanes. Miss Matilda sat bolt upright, and 
looked wistfully out of the windows as we drew near 
the end of our journey. The aspect of the country 
was quiet and pastoral. Woodley stood among 
fields ; and there was an old-fashioned garden where 
roses and currant-bushes touched each other, and 
where the feathery asparagus formed a pretty back- 
ground to the pinks and gilly-flowers ; there was no 
drive up to the door. We got out at a little gate, and 
walked up a straight box-edged path. 

“ My cousin might make a drive, I think,”, said Miss 
Pole, who was afraid of ear-ache, and had only her 
cap on. 

“ I think it is very pretty,” said Miss Matty, with a 
soft plaintiveness in her voice, and almost in a whis- 
per, for just then Mr. Holbrook appeared at the door, 
rubbing his hands in very effervescence of hospitality. 
He looked more like my idea of Don Quixote than 
ever, and yet the likeness was only external. His 


A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR 


59 


respectable housekeeper stood modestly at the door 
to bid us welcome ; and, while she led the elder 
ladies upstairs to a bedroom, I begged to look about 
the garden. My request evidently pleased the old 
gentleman, who took me all round the place, and 
showed me his six and twenty cows, named after the 
different letters of the alphabet. As we went along, 
he surprised me occasionally by repeating apt and 
beautiful quotations from the poets, ranging easily 
from Shakespeare and George Herbert to those of 
our own day. He did this as naturally as if he were 
thinking aloud, and their true and beautiful words 
were the best expression he could find for what he 
was thinking or feeling. To be sure he called Byron 
“my Lord Byrron,” and pronounced the name of 
Goethe strictly in accordance with the English sound 
of the letters — “As Goethe says, ‘Ye ever-verdant 
palaces, 1 11 etc. Altogether, I never met with a man, 
before or since, who had spent so long a life in a 
secluded and not impressive country, with ever-in- 
creasing delight in the daily and yearly change of 
season and beauty. 

When he and I went in, we found that dinner was 
nearly ready in the kitchen — for so I suppose the 
room ought to be called, as there were oak dressers 
and cupboards all round, all over by the side of the 
fireplace, and only a small Turkey carpet in the mid- 
dle of the flag-floor. The room might have been 
easily made into a handsome dark oak dining-parlour 
by removing the oven and a few other appurtenances 
of a kitchen, which were evidently never used, the 
real cooking-place being at some distance. The 


60 


CRANFORD 


room in which we were expected to sit was a stiffly- 
furnished, ugly apartment ; but that in which we did 
sit was what Mr. Holbrook called the counting-house, 
when he paid his labourers their weekly wages at a 
great desk near the door. The rest of the pretty 
sitting-room — looking into the orchard, and all cov- 
ered over with dancing tree-shadows — was filled 
with books. They lay on the ground, they covered 
the walls, they strewed the table. He was evidently 
half-ashamed and half-proud of his extravagance in 
this respect. They were of all kinds — poetry and 
wild weird tales prevailing. He evidently chose his 
books in accordance with his own tastes, not because 
such and such were classical or established favour- 
ites. 

“Ah !” he said, “we farmers ought not to have much 
time for reading ; yet somehow one can’t help it.” 

“ What a pretty room! ” said Miss Matty, sotto voce. 

“What a pleasant place!” said I aloud, almost 
simultaneously. 

“Nay! if you like it,” replied he; “but can you sit 
on these great black-leather three-cornered chairs? 
I like it better than the best parlour ; but I thought 
ladies would take that for the smarter place.” 

It was the smarter place, but, like most smart 
things, not at all pretty, or pleasant, or home-like ; 
so, while ,we were at dinner, the servant-girl dusted 
and scrubbed the counting-house chairs, and we sat 
there all the rest of the day. 

We had pudding before meat ; and I thought Mr. 
Holbrook was going to make some apology for his 
old-fashioned ways, for he began — 


A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR 61 


“ I don’t know whether you like new-fangled ways.” 

“ Oh, not at all ! ” said Miss Matty. 

“No more do I,” said he. “ My housekeeper will 
have these in her new fashion ; or else I tell her that, 
when I was a young man, we used to keep strictly to 
my father’s rule, 4 No broth, no ball ; no ball, no beef ; ’ 
and always began dinner with broth. Then we had 
suet puddings, boiled in the broth with the beef ; and 
then the meat itself. If we did not sup our broth, we 
had no ball, which we liked a deal better ; and the 
beef came last of all, and only those had it who had 
done justice to the broth and the ball. Now folks 
begin with sweet things, and turn their dinners topsy- 
turvy.” 

When the ducks and green peas came, we looked 
at each other in dismay ; we had only two-pronged 
black-handled forks. It is true the steel was as bright 
as silver ; but what were we to do ? Miss Matty picked 
up her peas, one by one, on the point of the prongs, 
much as Amine ate her grains of rice after her previous 
feast with the Ghoul. Miss Pole sighed over her 
delicate young peas as she left them on one side of 
her plate untasted, for they wotild drop between the 
prongs. I looked at my host: the peas were going 
wholesale into his capacious mouth, shovelled up by 
his large round-ended knife. I saw, I imitated, I sur- 
vived ! My friends, in spite of my precedent, could 
not muster up courage enough to do an ungenteel 
thing ; and, if Mr. Holbrook had not been so heartily 
hungry, he would probably have seen that the good 
peas went away almost untouched. 

After dinner a clay pipe was brought in, and a spit- 


62 


CRANFORD 


toon ; and, asking us to retire to another room, where 
he would soon join us, if we disliked tobacco-smoke, 
he presented his pipe to Miss Matty, and requested 



“ Requested her to fill the bowl." 


her to fill the bowl. This was a compliment to a lady 
in his youth ; but* it was rather inappropriate to pro- 
pose it as an honour to Miss Matty, who had been 
trained by her sister to hold smoking of every kind in 
utter abhorrence. But if it was a shock to her refine- 


A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR 63 


ment, it was also a gratification to her feelings to be 
thus selected ; so she daintily stuffed the strong tobacco 
into the pipe, and then we withdrew. 

“It is very pleasant dining with a bachelor,” said 
Miss Matty softly, as we settled ourselves in the 
counting-house. “ I only hope it is not improper ; 
so many pleasant things are ! ” 

“What a number of books he has!” said Miss 
Pole, looking round the room. “And how dusty 
they are ! ” 

“ I think it must be like one of the great Dr. John- 
son’s rooms,” said Miss Matty. “What a superior 
man your cousin must be! ” 

“Yes!” said Miss Pole, “he’s a great reader; but 
I am afraid he has got into very uncouth habits with 
living alone.” 

“Oh! uncouth is too hard a word. I should call 
him eccentric ; very clever people always are!” replied 
Miss Matty. 

When Mr. Holbrook returned, he proposed a walk 
in the fields; but the two elder ladies were afraid of 
damp and dirt, and had only very unbecoming calashes 
to put on over their caps ; so they declined, and I was 
again his companion in a turn which he said he was 
obliged to take to see after his men. He strode along, 
either wholly forgetting my existence, or soothed into 
silence by his pipe — and yet it was not silence exactly. 
He walked before me, with a stooping gait, his hands 
clasped behind him ; and, as some tree or cloud, or 
glimpse of distant upland pastures, struck him, he 
quoted poetry to himself, saying it out loud in a grand 
sonorous voice, with just the emphasis that true feeling 


64 


CRANFORD 


and appreciation give. We came upon an old cedar- 
tree, which stood at one end of the house — 

The cedar spreads his dark-green layers of shade. 

“ Capital term — 1 layers ! ’ W onderful man ! ” I did 
not know whether he was speaking to me or not ; but 
I put in an assenting “wonderful,” although I knew 
nothing about it, just because I was tired of being 
forgotten, and of being consequently silent. 

He turned sharp round. “Ay! you may say ‘won- 
derful. 1 Why, when I saw the review of his poems 
in Blackwood , I set off within an hour, and walked 
seven miles to Misselton (for the horses were not in 
the way) and ordered them. Now, what colour are 
ash-buds in March ? 11 

Is the man going mad? thought I. He is very like 
Don Quixote. 

“ What colour are they, I say ? ” repeated he vehe- 
mently. 

“I am sure I don’t know, sir,” said I, with the 
meekness of ignorance. 

“ I knew you didn’t. No more did I — an old fool 
that I am! — till this young man comes and tells me. 
Black as ash-buds in March. And I’ve lived all my 
life in the country ; more shame for me not to know. 
Black : they are jet-black, madam.” And he went 
off again, swinging along to the music of some rhyme 
he had got hold of. 

When we came back, nothing would serve him but 
he must read us the poems he had been speaking of ; 
and Miss Pole encouraged him in his proposal, I 
thought, because she wished me to hear his beautiful 


A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR 65 


reading, of which she had boasted ; but she afterwards 
said it was because she had got to a difficult part of 
her crochet, and wanted to count her stitches without 
having to talk. Whatever he had proposed would 
have been right to Miss Matty ; although she did fall 
sound asleep within five minutes after he had begun a 



He had begun a long poem." 


long poem called “ Locksley Hall,” and had a com- 
fortable nap, unobserved, till he ended ; when the 
cessation of his voice wakened her up, and she said, 
feeling that something was expected, and that Miss 
Pole was counting — 

“ What a pretty book ! ” 

“ Pretty, madam! it’s beautiful! Pretty, indeed! ” 



66 


CRANFORD 


“ Oh yes ! I meant beautiful ! 11 said she, fluttered at 
his disapproval of her word. “It is so like that beauti- 
ful poem of Dr. Johnson’s my sister used to read — I 
forget the name of it ; what was it, my dear? ” turn- 
ing to me. 

“ Which do you mean, madam ? What was it 
about ? ” 

“ I don’t remember what it was about, and I’ve 
quite forgotten what the name of it was ; but it was 
written by Dr. Johnson, and was very beautiful, 
and very like what Mr. Holbrook has just been 
reading.” 

“I don’t remember it,” said he reflectively. “ But 
I don’t know Dr. Johnson’s poems well. I must read 
them.” 

As we were getting into the fly to return, I heard 
Mr. Holbrook say he should call on the ladies soon, 
and inquire .how they got home ; and this evidently 
pleased and fluttered Miss Matty at the time he said 
it ; but after we had lost sight of the old house among 
the trees her sentiments towards the master of it were 
gradually absorbed into a distressing wonder as to 
whether Martha had broken her word, and seized on 
the opportunity of her mistress’s absence to have a 
“ follower.” Martha looked good, and steady, and com- 
posed enough, as she came to help us out ; she was 
always careful of Miss Matty, and to-night she made 
use of this unlucky speech — 

“ Eh ! dear ma’am, to think of your going out 
in an evening in such a thin shawl! It’s no better 
than muslin. At your age, ma’am, you should be 
careful.” 


A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR 67 


“ My age ! ” said Miss Matty, almost speaking 
crossly, for her, for she was usually gentle — “ my 
age! Why, how old do you think I am, that you 
talk about my age ? 11 

“Well, ma’am, I should say you were not far short 
of sixty : but folks’ looks is often against them — and 
I’m sure I meant no harm.” 

“ Martha, I’m not yet fifty-two! ” said Miss Matty, 
with grave emphasis ; for probably the remembrance 
of her youth had come very vividly before her this 
day, and she was annoyed at finding that golden time 
so far away in the past. * 

But she never spoke of any former and more in- 
timate acquaintance with Mr. Holbrook. She had 
probably met with so little sympathy in her early love 
that she had shut it up close in her heart ; and it was 
only by a sort of watching, which I could hardly avoid 
since Miss Pole’s confidence, that I saw how faithful 
her poor heart had been in its sorrow and its silence. 

She gave me some good reason for wearing her 
best cap every day, and sat near the window, in spite 
of her rheumatism, in order to see, without being seen, 
down into the street. 

He came. He put his open palms upon his knees, 
which were far apart, as he sat with his head bent 
down, whistling, after we had replied to his inquiries 
about our safe return. Suddenly he jumped up — 

“ Well, madam! have you any commands for Paris? 
I am going there in a week or two.” 

“To Paris! ” we both exclaimed. 

“Yes, madam! I’ve never been there, and always 
had a wish to go ; and I think if I don’t go soon, I 


68 


CRANFORD 


mayn’t go at all; so as soon as the hay is got in 
I shall go, before harvest time.” 

We were so much astonished that we had no com- 
missions. 

Just as he was going out of the room, he turned 
back, with his favourite exclamation — 

“ God bless my soul, madam ! but I nearly forgot 
half my errand. Here are the poems for you you ad- 
mired so much the other evening at my house.” He 
tugged away at a parcel in his coat-pocket. “ Good- 
bye, miss,” said he; “good-bye, Matty! take care of 
yourself.” And he was gone. But he had given her 
a book, and he had called her Matty, just as he used 
to do thirty years ago. 

“ I wish he would not go to Paris,” said Miss Ma- 
tilda anxiously. “ I don’t believe frogs will agree 
with him ; he used to have to be very careful what he 
ate, which was curious in so strong-looking a young 
man.” 

Soon after this I took my leave, giving many an 
injunction to Martha to look after her mistress, and to 
let me know if she thought that Miss Matilda was not 
so well ; in which case I would volunteer a visit to my 
old friend, without noticing Martha’s intelligence to 
her. 

Accordingly I received a line or two from Martha 
every now and then ; and, about November, I had a 
note to say her mistress was “ very low and sadly off 
her food ” ; and the account made me so uneasy that, 
although Martha did not decidedly summon me, I 
packed up my things and went. 

1 received a warm welcome, in spite of the little 


A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR 69 



Here are the poems for you." 


flurry produced by my impromptu visit, for I had only 
been able to give a day’s notice. Miss Matilda 
looked miserably ill ; and I prepared to comfort and 
cosset her. 


70 


CRANFORD 


I went down to have a private talk with Martha. 

“ How long has your mistress been so poorly?” I 
asked, as I stood by the kitchen fire. 

“ Well, I think it’s better than a fortnight ; it is, I 
know ; it was one Tuesday, after Miss Pole had been, 
that she went into this moping way. I thought she 
was tired, and it would go off with a night’s rest ; but 
no ! she has gone on and on ever since, till I thought 
it my duty to write to you, ma’am.” 

“You did quite right, Martha. It is a comfort to 
think she has so faithful a servant about her. And I 
hope you find your place comfortable ? ” 

“Well, ma’am, missus is very kind, and there’s 
plenty to eat and drink, and no more work but what 
I can do easily, — but ” Martha hesitated. 

“ But what, Martha? ” 

“Why, it seems - so hard of missus not to let me 
have any followers ; there’s such lots of young fellows 
in the town ; and many a one has as much as offered 
to keep company with me ; and I may never be in 
such a likely place again, and it’s like wasting an op- 
portunity. Many a girl as I know would have ’em 
unbeknownst to missus ; but I’ve given my word, and 
I’ll stick to it ; or else this is just the house for mis- 
sus never to be the wiser if they did come : and it’s 
such a capable kitchen — there’s such good dark cor- 
ners in it — I’d be bound to hide any one. I counted 
up last Sunday night — for I’ll not deny I was crying 
because I had to shut the door in Jem Hearn’s face, 
and he’s a steady young man, fit for any girl ; only I 
had given missus my word.” Martha was all but 
crying again ; and I had little comfort to give her, for 


A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR 


71 


I knew, from old experience, of the horror with which 
both the Miss Jenkynses looked upon “followers” ; 
and in Miss Matty’s present nervous state this dread 
was not likely to be lessened. 

I went to see Miss Pole the next day, and took her 
completely by surprise, for she had not been to see 
Miss Matilda for two days. 

“ And now I must go back with you, my dear, for I 
promised to let her know how Thomas Holbrook 
went on \ and, I’m sorry to say, his housekeeper has 
sent me word to-day that he hasn’t long to live. 
Poor Thomas! that journey to Paris was quite too 
much for him. His housekeeper says he has hardly 
ever been round, his fields since, but just sits with his 
hands on his knees in the counting-house, not read- 
ing or anything,* but only saying what a wonderful city 
Paris was ! Paris has much to answer for if it’s killed 
my cousin Thomas, for a better man never lived.” 

“ Does Miss Matilda know of his illness ? ” asked 
I — a new light as to the cause of her indisposition 
dawning upon me. 

“Dear! to be sure, yes! Has not she told you? I 
let her know a fortnight ago, or more, when first I 
heard of it. How odd she shouldn’t have told 
you ! ” 

Not at all, I thought; but I did not say anything. 
I felt almost guilty of having spied too curiously into 
that tender heart, and I was not going to speak of its 
secrets — hidden, Miss Matty believed, from all the 
world. I ushered Miss Pole into Miss Matilda’s little 
drawing-room, and then left them alone. But I was 
not surprised when Martha came to my bedroom 


72 


CRANFORD 


door, to ask me to go down to dinner alone, for that 
missus had one of her bad headaches. She came 
into the drawing-room at tea-time, but it was evidently 
an effort to her ; and, as if to make up for some re- 
proachful feeling against her late sister, Miss Jenkyns, 
which had been troubling her ali the afternoon, and 
for which she now felt penitent, she kept telling me 
how good and how clever Deborah was in her youth ; 
how she used to settle what gowns they were to wear 
at all the parties (faint, ghostly ideas of grim parties, 
far away in the distance, when Miss Matty and Miss 
Pole were young!) ; and how Deborah and her 
mother had started the benefit society for the poor, 
and taught girls cooking and plain sewing ; and how 
Deborah had once danced with a lord ; and how she 
used to visit at Sir Peter Arley’s, and try to remodel 
the quiet rectory establishment on the plans of Arley 
Hall, where they kept thirty servants ; and how she 
had nursed Miss Matty through a long, long illness, of 
which I had never heard before, but which I now 
dated in my own mind as following the dismissal of 
the suit of Mr. Holbrook. So we talked softly and 
quietly of old times through the long November 
evening. 

The next day Miss Pole brought us word that Mr. 
Holbrook was dead. Miss Matty heard the news in 
silence ; in fact, from the account of the previous day, 
it was only what we had to expect. Miss Pole kept 
calling upon us for some expression of regret, by ask- 
ing if it was not sad that he was gone, and saying — 

“To think of that pleasant day last June, when he 
seemed so well ! And he might have lived this dozen 


A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR 73 


years if he had not gone to that wicked Paris, where 
they are always having revolutions.” 

She paused for some demonstration on our part. 
I saw Miss Matty could not speak, she was trembling 
so nervously ; so I said what I really felt : and after 
a call of some duration — all the time of which I have 
no doubt Miss Pole thought Miss Matty received the 
news very calmly — our visitor took her leave. 

Miss Matty made a strong effort to conceal her feel- 
ings — a concealment she practised even with me, for 
she has never alluded to Mr. Holbrook again, al- 
though the book he gave her lies with her Bible on 
the little table by her bedside. She did not think I 
heard her when she asked the little milliner of Cran- 
ford to make her caps something like the Honourable 
Mrs. Jamieson’s, or that I noticed the reply — 

“ But she wears widows’ caps, ma’am ?-” 
u Oh ? I only meant something in that style ; not 
widows’, of course, but rather like Mrs. Jamieson’s.” 

This effort at concealment was the beginning of 
the tremulous motion of head and hands which I have 
seen ever since in Miss Matty. 

The evening of the day on which we heard of Mr. 
Holbrook’s death, Miss Matilda was very silent and 
thoughtful ; after prayers she called Martha back, and 
then she stood, uncertain what to say. 

“ Martha! ” she said at last, “ you are young ” — and 
then she made so long a pause that Martha, to remind 
her of her half-finished sentence, dropped a curtsey, 
and said — 

“ Yes, please, ma’am ; two and twenty last third of 
October, please, ma’am.” 


74 


CRANFORD 


“ And perhaps, Martha, you may some time meet 
with a young man you like, and who likes you. I did 
say you were not to have followers ; but if you meet 
with such a young man, and tell me, and I find he is 
respectable, I have no objection to his coming to see 
you once a week. God forbid!” said she in a low 
voice, “ that I should grieve any young hearts.” She 
spoke as if she were providing for some distant con- 
tingency, and was rather startled when Martha made 
her ready eager answer. 

“Please, ma’am, there’s Jem Hearn, and he’s a 
joiner making three-and-sixpence a day, and six foot 
one in his stocking feet, please, ma’am ; and if you’ll 
ask about him to-morrow morning, every one will 
give him a character for steadiness ; and he’ll be 
glad enough to come to-morrow night, I’ll be bound.” 

Though Miss Matty was startled, she submitted to 
Fate and Love. 




\£ o x>f often noticed 
that almost 
every one has his own 
individual small econo- 
mies — careful habits of 
saving fractions of pen- 
nies in some one peculiar 
direction — any disturb- 
ance of which annoys 
him more than spend- 
ing shillings or pounds on some real extravagance. 
An old gentleman of my acquaintance, who took 
the intelligence of the failure of a Joint-Stock Bank, 
in which some of his money was invested, with sto- 
ical mildness, worried his family all through a long 
summer’s day, because one of them had torn (instead 
of cutting) out the written leaves of his now useless 
bank-book ; of course the corresponding pages at the 
other end came out as well, and this littlg unnecessary 
waste of paper (his private economy) chafed him 
more than all the loss of his money. Envelopes 
fretted his soul terribly when they first came in ; the 
only way in which he could reconcile himself to such 
waste of his cherished article was by patiently turning 
inside out all that were sent to him, and so making 
them serve again. Even now, though tamed by age, 
I see him casting wistful glances at his daughters 

75 


76 


CRANFORD 


when they send a whole inside of a half-sheet of note- 
paper, with the three lines of acceptance to an invita- 
tion, written on only one of the sides. I am not 
above owning that I have this human weakness my- 
self. String is my foible. My pockets get full of 
little hanks of it, picked up and twisted together, ready 
for uses that never come. I am seriously annoyed if 
any one cuts the string of a parcel instead of patiently 
and faithfully undoing it fold by fold. How people 
can bring themselves to use india-rubber rings, which 
are a sort of deification of string, as lightly as they do, 
I cannot imagine. To me an india-rubber ring is a 
precious treasure. I have one which is not new — 
one that I picked up off the floor nearly six years ago. 
I have really tried to use it, but my heart failed me, 
and I could not commit the extravagance. 

Small pieces of butter grieve others. They cannot 
attend to conversation because of the annoyance oc- 
casioned by the habit which some people have of 
invariably taking more butter than they want. Have 
you not seen the anxious look (almost mesmeric) 
which such persons fix on the article ? They would 
feel it a relief if they might bury it out of their sight 
by popping itjnto their own mouths and swallowing 
it down ; and they are really made happy if the per- 
son on whose plate it lies unused suddenly breaks 
off a piece of toast (which he does not want at all) 
and eats up his butter. They think that this is not 
waste. 

Now Miss Matty Jenkyns was chary of candles. 
We had many devices to use as few as possible. In 
the winter afternoons she would sit knitting for two 


OLD LETTERS 


77 


or three hours — she could do this in the dark, or by 
fire-light — and when I asked if I might not ring for 
candles to finish stitching my wristbands, she told me 
to “ keep blind man’s holiday.” They were usually 
brought in with tea ; but we only burnt one at a time. 
As we lived in constant preparation for a friend who 
might come in any evening (but who never did), it 
required some contrivance to keep our two candles of 
the same length, ready to be lighted, and to look as 
if we burnt two always. The candles took it in turns ; 
and, whatever we might be talking about or doing, 
Miss Matty’s eyes were habitually fixed upon the 
candle, ready to jump up and extinguish it and to 
light the other before they had become too uneven 
in length to be restored to equality in the course of 
the evening. 

One night, I remember this candle economy par- 
ticularly annoyed me. I had been very much tired of 
my compulsory u blind man’s holiday,” especially as 
Miss Matty had fallen asleep, and I did not like to 
stir the fire and run the risk of awakening her ; so I 
could not even sit on the rug, and scorch myself with 
sewing by fire-light, according to my usual custom. 
I fancied Miss Matty must be dreaming of her early 
life ; for she spoke one or two words in her uneasy 
sleep bearing reference to persons who were dead 
long before. When Martha brought in the lighted 
candle and tea, Miss Matty started into wakefulness, 
with a strange bewildered look around, as if we were 
not the people she expected to see about her. There 
was a little sad expression that shadowed her face as 
she recognised me ; but immediately afterwards she 


78 


CRANFORD 


tried to give me her usual smile. All through tea- 
time her talk ran upon the days of her childhood and 
youth. Perhaps this reminded her of the desirable- 
ness of looking over all the old family letters, and 
destroying such as ought not to be allowed to fall 
into the hands of strangers ; for she had often spoken 
of the necessity of this task, but she had always 
shrunk from it, with a timid dread of something pain- 
ful. To-night, however, she rose up after tea and 
went for them — in the dark; for she piqued herself 
on the precise neatness of all her chamber arrange- 
ments, and used to look uneasily at me when I lighted 
a bed-candle to go to another room for anything. 
When she returned there was a faint pleasant smell 
of Tonquin beans in the room. I had always noticed 
this scent about any of the things which had belonged 
to her mother ; and many of the letters were addressed 
to her — yellow bundles of love-letters, sixty or 
seventy years old. 

Miss Matty undid the packet with a sigh ; but she 
stifled it directly, as if it were hardly right to regret 
the flight of time, or of life either. We agreed to 
look them over separately, each taking a different 
letter out of the same bundle and describing its contents 
to the other before destroying it. I never knew what 
sad work the reading of old letters was before that 
evening, though I could hardly tell why. The letters 
were as happy as letters could be — at least those 
early letters were. There was in them a vivid and 
intense sense of the present time, which seemed so 
strong and full, as if it could never pass away, and as 
if the warm living hearts that so expressed themselves 


OLD LETTERS 


79 


could never die, and be as nothing to the sunny earth. 
I should have felt less melancholy, I believe, if the 
letters had been more so. I saw the tears stealing 
down the well-worn furrows of Miss Matty’s cheeks, 
and her spectacles often wanted wiping. I trusted at 
last that she would light the other candle, for my own 
eyes were rather dim, and I wanted more light to see 
the pale and faded ink ; but no, even through her tears, 
she saw and remembered her little economical ways. 

The earliest set of letters were two bundles tied 
together, and ticketed (in Miss Jenkyns’s handwrit- 
ing), “ Letters interchanged between my ever-hon- 
oured father and my dearly-beloved mother, prior to 
their marriage, in July 1774.” I should guess that 
the rector of Cranford was about twenty-seven years 
of age when he wrote those letters ; and Miss Matty 
told me that her mother was just eighteen at the time 
of her wedding. With my idea of the rector, derived 
from a picture in the dining-parlour, stiff and stately, 
in a huge full-bottomed wig, with gown, cassock, and 
bands, and his hand upon a copy of the only sermon 
he ever published — it was strange to read these 
letters. They were full of eager passionate ardour; 
short homely sentences, right fresh from the heart 
(very different from the grand Latinised, Johnsonian 
style of the printed sermon, preached before some 
judge at assize time) . His letters were a curious con- 
trast to those of his girl-bride. She was evidently 
rather annoyed at his demands upon her for expres- 
sions of love, and could not quite understand what he 
meant by repeating the same thing over in so many 
different ways ; but what she was quite clear about 


80 


CRANFORD 


was a longing for a white “ Paduasoy 11 — whatever 
that might be ; and six or seven letters were princi- 
pally occupied in asking her lover to use his influence 



with her parents (who evidently kept her in good 
order) to obtain this or that article of dress, more 
especially the white “ Paduasoy.” He cared nothing 
how she was dressed ; she was always lovely enough 



OLD LETTERS 


31 


for him, as he took pains to assure her, when she 
begged him to express in his answers a predilection 
for particular pieces of finery, in order that she might 
show what he said to her parents. But at length he 
seemed to find out that she would not be married till 
she had a “ trousseau ” to her mind ; and then he 
sent her a letter, which had evidently accompanied a 
whole boxful of finery, and in which he requested that 
she might be dressed in everything her heart desired. 
This was the first letter, ticketed in a frail, delicate 
hand, “From my dearest John.” Shortly afterwards 
they were married, I suppose, from the intermission 
in their correspondence. 

“We must burn them, I think,” said Miss Matty, 
looking doubtfully at me. “ No one will care for them 
when I am gone.” And one by one she dropped 
them into the middle of the fire, watching each blaze 
up, die out, and rise away, in faint, white, ghostly 
semblance, up the chimney, before she gave another 
to the same fate. The room was light enough now; 
but I, like her, was fascinated into watching the de- 
struction of those letters, into which the honest 
warmth of a manly heart had been poured forth. 

The next letter, likewise docketed by Miss Jenkyns, 
was endorsed, “ Letter of pious congratulation and 
exhortation from my venerable grandfather to my 
beloved mother, on occasion of my own birth. Also 
some practical remarks on the desirability of keeping 
warm the extremities of infants, from my excellent 
grandmother.” 

The first part was, indeed, a severe and forcible 
picture of the responsibilities of mothers, and a warn- 


82 


CRANFORD 


ing against the evils that were in the world, and lying 
in ghastly wait for the little baby of two days old. His 
wife did not write, said the old gentleman, because he 
had forbidden it, she being indisposed with a sprained 
ankle, which (he said) quite incapacitated her from 
holding a pen. However, at the foot of the page 
was a small “T.O.,” and on turning it over, sure 
enough, there was a letter to “ my dear, dearest 
Molly,” begging her, when she left her room, what- 
ever she did, to go up stairs before going down : and 
telling her to wrap her baby’s feet up in flannel, and 
keep it warm by the fire, although it was summer, 
for babies were so tender. 

It was pretty to see from the letters, which were 
evidently exchanged with some frequency between 
the young mother and the grandmother, how the girl- 
ish vanity was being weeded out of her heart by love 
for her baby. The white “ Paduasoy ” figured again 
in the letters, with almost as much vigour as before. 
In one, it was being made into a christening cloak 
for the baby. It decked it when it went with its 
parents to spend a day or two at Arley Hall. It added 
to its charms when it was “ the prettiest little baby 
that ever was seen. Dear mother, I wish you could 
see her ! Without any parshality, I do think she will 
grow up a regular bewty ! ” I thought of Miss Jen- 
kyns, gray, withered, and wrinkled, and I wondered 
if her mother had known her in the courts of heaven ; 
and then I knew that she had, and that they stood 
there in angelic guise. 

There was a great gap before any of the rector’s 
letters appeared. And then his wife had changed 


OLD LETTERS 


83 


her mode of endorsement. It was no longer from 
“My dearest John”; it was from “My honoured 
Husband.” The letters were written on occasion of 
the publication of the same Sermon which was repre- 
sented in the picture. The preaching before “ My 
Lord Judge,” and the “publishing by request,” was 
evidently the culminating point — the event of his 
life. It had been necessary for him to go up to Lon- 
don to superintend it through the press. Many 
friends had to be called upon, and consulted, before 
he could decide on any printer fit for so onerous a 
task; and at length it was arranged that J. and J. 
Rivingtons were to have the honourable responsibil- 
ity. The worthy rector seemed to be strung up by 
the occasion to a high literary pitch, for he could 
hardly write a letter to his wife without cropping out 
into Latin. I remember the end of one of his letters 
ran thus : “ I shall ever hold the virtuous qualities of 
my Molly in remembrance, dum mentor ipse mei , dum 
spiritus regit artus which, considering that the 
English of his correspondent was sometimes at fault in 
grammar, and often in spelling, might be taken as a 
proof of how much he “ idealised his Molly ” ; and, 
as Miss Jenkyns used to say, “People talk a great 
deal about idealising nowadays, whatever that may 
mean.” But this was nothing to a fit of writing 
classical poetry which soon seized him, in which his 
Molly figured away as “ Maria.” The letter contain- 
ing the carmen was endorsed by her, “Hebrew 
verses sent me by my honoured husband. I thowt to 
have had a letter about killing the pig, but must wait. 
Mem., to send the poetry to Sir Peter Arley, as my 


84 


CRANFORD 


husband desires.” And in a post-scriptum note in 
his handwriting it was stated that the Ode had ap- 
peared in the Gentleman 1 s Magazine , December 1782. 

Her letters back to her husband (treasured as fondly 
by him as if they had been M. T. Ciceronis Efiistolce) 
were more satisfactory to an absent husband and 
father than his could ever have been to her. She 
told him how Deborah sewed her seam very neatly 
every day, and read to her in the books he had set 
her ; how she was a very “ forrard,” good child, but 
would ask questions her mother could not answer, 
but how she did not let herself down by saying she 
did not know, but took to stirring the fire, or sending 
the “forrard” child on an errand. Matty was now 
the mother’s darling, and promised (like her sister at 
her age) to be a great beauty. I was reading this 
aloud to Miss Matty, who smiled and sighed a little 
at the hope, so fondly expressed, that “ little Matty 
might not be vain, even if she were a bewty.” 

“ I had very pretty hair, my dear,” said Miss 
Matilda; “and not a bad mouth.” And I saw her 
soon afterwards adjust her cap and draw herself up. 

But to return to Mrs. Jenkyns’s letters. She told 
her husband about the poor in the parish ; what 
homely domestic medicines she had administered ; 
what kitchen physic she had sent. She had evidently 
held his displeasure as a rod in pickle over the heads 
of all the ne’er-do-wells. She asked for his direc- 
tions about the cows and pigs ; and did not always 
obtain them, as I have shown before. 

The kind old grandmother was dead when a little 
boy was born, soon after the publication of the Ser- 


OLD LETTERS 


85 


mon ; but there was another letter of exhortation from 
the grandfather, more stringent and admonitory than 
ever, now that there was a boy to be guarded from the 
snares of the world. He described all the various 
sins into which men might fall, until I wondered how 
any man ever came to a natural death. The gallows 
seemed as if it must have been the termination of the 
lives of most of the grandfather’s friends and acquaint- 
ance ; and I was not surprised at the way in which 
he spoke of this life being “a vale of tears.” 

It seemed curious that I should never have heard 
of this brother before ; but I concluded that he had 
died young, or else surely his name would have been 
alluded to by his sisters. 

By and by we came to packets of Miss Jenkyns’s 
letters. These Miss Matty did regret to burn. She 
said all the others had been only interesting to those 
who loved the writers, and that it seemed as if it would 
have hurt her to allow them to fall into the hands of 
strangers, who had not known her dear mother, and 
how good she was, although she did not always spell 
quite in the modern fashion ; but Deborah’s letters 
were so very superior! Any one might profit by 
reading them. It was a long time since she had read 
Mrs. Chapone, but she knew she used to think that 
Deborah could have said the same thing quite as well ; 
and as for Mrs. Carter! people thought a deal of her 
letters, just because she had written Epictetus, but 
she was quite sure Deborah would never have made 
use of such a common expression as “I canna be 
fashed!” 

Miss Matty did grudge burning these letters, it was 


86 


CRANFORD 


evident. She would not let them be carelessly passed 
over with any quiet reading, and skipping, to myself. 
She took them from me, and even lighted the second 
candle in order to read them aloud with a proper em- 
phasis, and without stumbling over the big words. 
Oh dear! how I wanted facts instead of reflections, 
before those letters were concluded ! They lasted us 
two nights ; and I won’t deny that I made use of the 
time to think of many other things, and yet I was 
always at my post at the end of each sentence. 

The rector’s letters, and those of his wife and 
mother-in-law, had all been tolerably short and pithy, 
written in a straight hand, with the lines very close 
together. Sometimes the whole letter was contained 
on a mere scrap of paper. The paper was very yellow, 
and the ink very brown ; some of the sheets were (as 
Miss Matty made me observe) the old original post, 
with the stamp in the corner representing a post-boy 
riding for life and twanging his hbrn. The letters of 
Mrs. Jenkyns and her mother were fastened with a great 
round red wafer ; for it was before Miss Edgeworth’s 
Patronage had banished wafers from polite society. 
It was evident, from the tenor of what was said, that 
franks were in great request, and were even used as a 
means of paying debts by needy members of Parlia- 
ment. The rector sealed his epistles with an immense 
coat of arms, and showed by the care with which he 
had performed this ceremony that he expected they 
should be cut open, not broken by any thoughtless or 
impatient hand. Now, Miss Jenkyns’s letters were of 
a later date in form and writing. She wrote on the 
square sheet which we have learned to call old-fash- 


OLD LETTERS 


87 


ioned. Her hand was admirably calculated, together 
with her use of many-syllabled words, to fill up a 
sheet, and then came the pride and delight of cross- 
ing. Poor Miss Matty got sadly puzzled with this, 
for the words gathered size like snowballs, and towards 
the end of her letter Miss Jenkyns used to become 
quite sesquipedalian. In one to her father, slightly 
theological and controversial in its tone, she had 
spoken of Herod, Tetrarch of Idumea. Miss Matty 
read it “ Herod, Petrarch of Etruria,” and was just as 
well pleased as if she had been right. 

I can't quite remember the date, but I think it was 
in 1805 that Miss Jenkyns wrote the longest series of 
letters — on occasion of her absence on a visit to some 
friends near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. These friends 
were intimate with the commandant of the garrison 
there, and heard from him of all the preparations that 
were being made to repel the invasion of Buonaparte, 
which some people imagined might take place at the 
mouth of the Tyne. Miss Jenkyns was evidently 
very much alarmed ; and the first part of her letters 
was often written in pretty intelligible English, con- 
veying particulars of the preparations which were 
made in the family with whom she was residing 
against the dreaded event; the bundles of clothes 
that were packed up ready for a flight to Alston Moor 
(a wild hilly piece of ground between Northumber- 
land and Cumberland) ; the signal that was to be 
given for this flight, and for the simultaneous turning 
out of the volunteers under arms — which said signal 
was to consist (if I remember rightly) in ringing the 
Church bells' in a particular and ominous manner. 


88 


CRANFORD 


One day, when Miss Jenkyns and her hosts were at a 
dinner party in Newcastle, this warning summons 
was actually given (not a very wise proceeding, if 
there be any truth in the moral attached to the fable 
of the Boy and the Wolf; but so it was), and Miss 
Jenkyns, hardly recovered from her fright, wrote the 
next day to describe the sound, the breathless shock, 
the hurry and alarm ; and then, taking breath, she 
added, “ How trivial, my dear father, do all our appre- 
hensions of the last evening appear, at the present 
moment, to calm and inquiring minds ! 11 And here 
Miss Matty broke in with — 

“ But, indeed, my dear, they were not at all trivial 
or trifling at the time. I know I used to wake up in 
the night many a time and think I heard the tramp 
of the French entering Cranford. Many people 
talked of hiding themselves in the salt mines — and 
meat would have kept capitally down there, only 
perhaps we should have been thirsty. And my 
father preached a whole set of sermons on the oc- 
casion ; one set in the mornings, all about David 
and Goliath, to spirit up the people to fighting with 
spades or bricks, if need were ; and the other set in 
the afternbons, proving that Napoleon (that was an- 
other name for Bony, as we used to call him) was all 
the Same as an Apollyon and Abaddon. I remember 
my father rather thought he should be asked to print 
this last set ; but the parish had, perhaps, had enough 
-of them with hearing.” 

Peter Marmaduke Arley Jenkyns (“poor Peter!” 
as Miss Matty began to call him) was at school at 
Shrewsbury by this time. The .rector took up his 


OLD LETTERS 


89 


pen, and rubbed up his Latin once more, to corre- 
spond with his boy. It was very clear that the lad’s 
were what are called show letters. They were of a 
highly mental description, giving an account of his 
studies, and his intellectual hopes of various kinds, 
with an occasional quotation from the classics ; but, 
now and then, the animal nature broke out in such a 
little sentence as this, evidently written in a trembling 
hurry, after the letter had been inspected : “ Mother 
dear, do send me a cake, and put plenty of citron in.” 
The “mother dear” probably answered her boy in 
the form of cakes and “ goody,” for there were none 
of her letters among this set ; but a whole collection 
of the rector’s to whom the Latin in his boy’s letters 
was like a trumpet to the old war-horse. I do not 
know much about Latin, certainly, and it is, perhaps, 
an ornamental language, but not very useful, I think 
— at least to judge from the bits I remember out of 
the rector’s letters. One was, “You have not got 
that town in your map of Ireland ; but Bonus Ber- 
nardus non videt omnia , as the Proverbia say.” 
Presently it became very evident that “ poor Peter ” 
got himself into many scrapes. There were letters 
of stilted penitence to his father, for some wrong- 
doing; and, among them all was a badly-written, 
badly-sealed, badly-directed, blotted note — “ My 
dear, dear, dear, dearest mother, I will be a better 
boy ; I will, indeed ; but don’t, please, be ill for me ; 
I am not worth it; but I will be good, darling 
mother.” 

Miss Matty could not speak for crying, after she 
had read this note. She gave it to me in silence, 


90 


CRANFORD 


and then got up and took it to her sacred recesses in 
her own room,' for fear, by any chance, it might get 
burnt. “ Poor Peter!” she said; “he was always 
in scrapes ; he was too easy. They led him wrong, 
and then left him in the lurch. But he was too fond 
of mischief. He could never resist a joke. Poor 
Peter! ” 



but Bonus Bernardus non videt omnia, in this map 
too. He was to win honours at Shrewsbury School, 
and carry them thick to Cambridge, and after that, a 
living awaited him, the gift of his godfather, Sir Peter 
Arley. Poor Peter! his lot in life was very different 
to what his friends had hoped and planned. Miss 
Matty told me all about it, and I think it was a relief 
to her when she had done so. 

He was the darling of his mother, who seemed to 
dote on all her children, though she was, perhaps, 
a little afraid of Deborah’s superior acquirements. 
Deborah was the favourite of her father, and when 
Peter disappointed him she became his pride. The 
sole honour Peter brought away from Shrewsbury 
was the reputation of being the best good fellow that 
ever was, and of being the captain of the school in 
the art of practical joking. His father was disap- 
pointed, but set about remedying the matter in a 
manly way. He could not afford to send Peter to 
read with any tutor, but he could read with him him- 

9i 




92 


CRANFORD 


self; and Miss Matty told me much of the awful 
preparations in the way of dictionaries and lexicons 
that were made in her father’s study the morning 
Peter began. 

“ My poor mother ! ” said she. “ I remember how 
she used to stand in the hall, just near enough the 
study-door, to catch the tone of my father’s voice. I 
could tell in a moment if all was going right, by her 
face. And it did go right for a long time.” 

“ What went wrong at last?” said I. “ That tire- 
some Latin, I daresay.” 

“No! it was not the Latin. Peter was in high 
favour with my father, for he worked up well for him. 
But he seemed to think that the Cranford people 
might be joked about, and made fun of, and they did 
not like it; nobody does. He was always hoaxing 
them ; ‘ hoaxing ’ is not a pretty word, my dear, and 
I hope you won’t tell your father I used it, for I should 
not like him to think that I was not choice in my lan- 
guage, after living with . such a woman as Deborah. 
And be sure you never use it yourself. I don’t know 
how it slipped out of my mouth, except it was that I 
was thinking of poor Peter, and it was always his 
expression. But he was a very gentlemanly boy in 
many things. He was like dear Captain Brown in 
always being ready to help any old person or a child. 
Still, he did like joking and making fun ; and he 
seemed to think the old ladies in Cranford would 
believe anything. There were many old ladies living 
here then; we are principally ladies now, I know, 
but we are not so old as the ladies used to be when 
I was a girl. I could laugh to think of some of 


POOR PETER 


93 


Peter’s jokes. No, my dear, I won’t tell you of them, 
because they might not shock you as they ought to 
do, and they were very shocking. He even took in 
my father once, by dressing himself up as a lady that 
was passing through the town and wished to see the 
Rector of Cranford, 1 who had published that admir- 
able Assize Sermon.’ Peter said he was awfully 
frightened himself when he saw how my father took 
it all in, and even offered to copy out all his Napoleon 
Buonaparte sermons for her — him, I mean — no, her, 
for Peter was a lady then. He told me he was more 
terrified than he ever was before, all the time my 
father was speaking. He did not think my father 
would have believed him ; and yet if he had not, it 
would have been a sad thing for Peter. As it was, 
he was none so glad of it, for my father kept him hard 
at work copying out all those twelve Buonaparte ser- 
mons for the lady — that was for Peter himself, you 
know. He was the lady. And once when he wanted 
to go fishing, Peter said, 1 Confound the woman! ’ — 
very bad language, my dear, but Peter was not always 
so guarded as he should have been ; my father was 
so angry with him, it nearly frightened me out of my 
wits : and yet I could hardly keep from laughing at 
the little curtseys Peter kept making, quite slyly, 
whenever my father spoke of the lady’s excellent taste 
and sound discrimination.” 

“ Did Miss Jenkyns know of these tricks? ” said I. 

“Oh no! Deborah would have been too much 
shocked. No, no one knew but me, I wish I had 
always known of Peter’s plans ; but sometimes he did 
not tell me. He used to say the old ladies in the 


94 


CRANFORD 



‘ The little curtseys." 


town wanted something to talk about ; but I don’t 
think they did. They had the St. James's Chronicle 
three times a week, just as we have now, and we have 
plenty to say; and I remember the clacking noise 


POOR PETER 


95 


there always was when some of the ladies got to- 
gether. But, probably, schoolboys talk more than 
ladies. At last there was a terrible, sad thing hap- 
pened.” Miss Matty got up, went to the door, and 
opened it ; no one was there. She rang the bell for 
Martha, and when Martha came, her mistress told 
her to go for eggs to a farm at the other end of the 
town. 

“I will lock the door after you, Martha. You are 
not afraid to go, are you ? ” 

“No, ma’am, not at all; Jem Hearn will be only 
too proud to go with me.” 

Miss Matty drew herself up, and as soon as we 
were alone, she wished that Martha had more 
maidenly reserve. 

“ We’ll put out the candle, my dear. We can 
talk just as well by firelight, you know. There ! 
Well, you see, Deborah had gone from home for a 
fortnight or so ; it was a very still, quiet day, I 
remember, overhead ; and the lilacs were all in flower, 
so I suppose it was spring. My father had gone out 
to see some sick people in the parish ; I recollect see- 
ing him leave the house with his wig and shovel-hat 
and cane. What possessed our poor Peter I don’t 
know ; he had the sweetest temper, and yet he always 
seemed to like to plague Deborah. She never laughed 
at his jokes, and thought him ungenteel, and not care- 
ful enough about improving his mind ; and that vexed 
him. 

“ Well ! he went to her room, it seems, and dressed 
himself in her old gown, and shawl, and bonnet ; just 
the things she used to wear in Cranford, and was 


96 


CRANFORD 


known by everywhere ; and he made the pillow into 
a little — you are sure you locked the door, my dear, 
for I should not like any one to hear — into — into — 
a little baby, with white long clothes. It was only, 
as he told me afterwards, to make something to talk 
about in the town ; he never thought of it as affecting 
Deborah. And he went and walked up and down in 
the Filbert walk — just half-hidden by the rails, and 
half-seen ; and he cuddled his pillow, just like a baby, 
and talked to it all the nonsense people do. Oh dear! 
and my father came stepping stately up the street, as 
he always did ; and what should he see but a little 
black crowd of people — I daresay as many as twenty 
— all peeping through his garden rails. So he 
thought, at first, they were only looking at a new 
rhododendron that was in full bloom, and that he 
was very proud of ; and he walked slower, that they 
might have more time to admire. And he wondered 
if he could make out a sermon from the occasion, and 
thought, perhaps, there was some relation between 
the rhododendrons and the lilies of the field. My 
poor father! When he came nearer, he began to 
wonder that they did not see him ; but their heads 
were all so close together, peeping and peeping ! My 
father was amongst them, meaning, he said, to ask 
them to walk into the garden with him, and admire 
the beautiful vegetable production, when — oh, my 
dear ! I tremble to think of it — he looked through 
the rails himself, and saw — I don’t know what he 
thought he saw, but old Clare told me his face went 
quite gray-white with anger, and his eyes blazed out 
under his frowning black brows ; and he spoke out — 


POOR PETER 


97 


oh, so terribly ! — and bade them all stop where they 
were — not one of them to go, not one to stir a step ; 
and, swift as light, he was in at the garden door, and 
down the Filbert walk, and seized hold of poor Peter, 
and tore his clothes off his back — bonnet, shawl, 
gown, and all — and threw the pillow among the 
people over the railings : and then he was very, very 
angry indeed, and before all the people he lifted up 
his cane and flogged Peter ! 

“ My dear, that boy’s trick, on that sunny day, 
when all seemed going straight and well, broke my 
mother’s heart, and changed my father for life. It 
did, indeed. Old Clare said, Peter looked as white 
as my father; and stood as still as a statue to be 
flogged ; and my father struck hard ! When my 
father stopped to take breath, Peter said, 1 Have you 
done enough, sir ? ’ quite hoarsely, and still standing 
quite quiet. I don’t know what my father said — 
or if he said anything. But old Clare said, Peter 
turned to where the people outside the railing were, 
and made them a low bow, as grand and as grave as 
any gentleman ; and then walked slowly into the 
house. I was in the store-room helping my mother 
to make cowslip-wine. I cannot abide the wine now, 
nor the scent of the flowers ; they turn me sick and 
faint, as they did that day, when Peter came in, look- 
ing as haughty as any man — indeed, looking like a 
man, not like a boy. ‘Mother ! ’ he said, ‘I am come . 
to say, God bless you for ever.’ I saw his lips quiver 
as he spoke ; and I think he durst not say anything 
more loving, for the purpose that was in his heart. 
She looked at him rather frightened, and wondering, 


98 


CRANFORD 


and asked him what was to do. He did not smile or 
speak, but put his arms round her and kissed her as if 
he did not know how to leave off ; and before she could 
speak again, he was gone. We talked it over, and 
could not understand it, and she bade me go and seek 
my father, and ask what it was all about. I found him 
walking up and down, looking very highly displeased. 

“ 1 Tell your mother I have flogged Peter, and that 
he richly deserved it . 1 

“I durst not ask any more questions. When I 
told my mother, she sat down, quite faint, for a 
minute. I remember, a few days after, I saw the 
poor, withered cowslip flowers thrown out to the leaf 
heap, to decay and die there. There was no making 
of cowslip-wine that year at the rectory — nor, indeed, 
ever after. 

“ Presently my mother went to my father. I know 
I thought of Queen Esther and King Ahasuerus ; for 
my mother was very pretty and delicate-looking, and 
my father looked as terrible as King Ahasuerus. 
Some time after they came out together; and then 
my mother told me what had happened, and that she 
was going up to Peter’s room at my father’s desire — 
though she was not to tell Peter this — to talk the 
matter over with him. But no Peter was there. We 
looked over the house ; no Peter was there ! Even 
my father, who had not liked to join in the search at 
first, helped us before long. The rectory was a very 
old house — steps up into a room, steps down into a 
room, all through. At first, my mother went calling 
low and soft, as if to reassure the poor boy, ‘ Peter ! 
Peter, dear ! it’s only me ; ’ but, by and by, as the 


POOR PETER 


99 


servants came back from the errands my father had 
sent them, in different directions, to find where Peter 
was — as we found he was not in the garden, nor the 
hayloft, nor anywhere about — my mother’s cry grew 
louder and wilder, ‘ Peter ! Peter, my darling ! where 
are you ?•’ for then she felt and understood that that 
long kiss meant some sad kind of 1 good-bye. 1 The 
afternoon went on — my mother never resting, but 
seeking again and again in every possible place that 
had been looked into twenty times before, nay, that 
she had looked into over and over again herself. My 
father sat with his head in his hands, not speaking 
except when his messengers came in, bringing no tid- 
ings ; then he lifted up his face, so strong and sad, 
and told them to go again in some new direction. 
My mother kept passing from room to room, in and 
out of the house, moving noiselessly, but never ceas- 
ing. Neither she nor my father durst leave the 
house, which was the meeting-place for all the mes- 
sengers. At last (and it was nearly dark) my father 
rose up. He took hold of my mother’s arm as she 
came with wild, sad pace through one door, and 
quickly towards another. She started at the touch 
of his hand, for she had forgotten all in the world but 
Peter. 

“ ‘Molly!’ said he, ‘I did not think all this would 
happen.’ He looked intd her face for comfort — her 
poor face, all wild and white ; for neither she nor 
my father had dared to acknowledge — much less act 
upon — the terror that was in their hearts, lest Peter 
should have made away with himself. My father 
saw no conscious look in his wife’s hot, dreary eyes, 


100 


CRANFORD 


and he missed the sympathy that she had always 
been ready to give him — strong man as he was, and 
at the dumb despair in her face his tears began to 
flow. But when she saw this, a gentle sorrow came 
over her countenance, and she said, ‘Dearest John! 
don’t cry ; come with me, and we’ll find him,’ almost 
as cheerfully as if she knew where he was. And 
she took my father’s great hand in her little soft one 
and led him along, the tears dropping as he walked 
on that same unceasing, weary walk, from room to 
room, through house and garden. 

“ Oh, how I wished for Deborah ! I had no time 
for crying, for now all seemed to depend on me. I 
wrote for Deborah to come home. I sent a message 
privately to that same Mr. Holbrook’s house — poor 
Mr. Holbrook! — you know who I mean. I don’t 
mean I sent a message to him, but I sent one that I 
could trust to know if Peter was at his house. For 
at one time Mr. Holbrook was an occasional visitor at 
the rectory — you know he was Miss Pole’s cousin — 
and he had been very kind to Peter, and taught him 
how to fish — - he was very kind to everybody, and I 
thought Peter might have gone off there. But Mr. 
Holbrook was from home, and Peter had never been 
seen. It was night now; but the doors were all 
wide open, and my father and mother walked on and 
on ; it was more than an hour since he had joined her, 
and I don’t believe they had ever spoken all that 
time. I was getting the parlour fire lighted, and one 
of the servants was preparing tea, for I wanted them 
to have something to eat and drink and warm them, 
when old Clare asked to speak to me. 


POOR PETER 


101 


“ 1 I have borrowed the nets from the weir, Miss 
Matty. Shall we drag the ponds to-night, or wait for 
the morning ? ’ 

“ I remember staring in his face to gather his mean- 
ing ; and when I did, laughed out loud. The horror 
of that new thought — our bright, darling Peter, 
cold, and stark, and dead ! I remember the ring of 
my own laugh now. 

“ The next day Deborah was at home before I was 
myself again. She would not have been so weak as 
to give way as I had done ; but my screams (my hor- 
rible laughter had ended in crying) had roused my 
sweet dear mother, whose poor wandering wits were 
called back and collected as soon as a child needed 
her care. She and Deborah sat by my bedside ; 
I knew by the looks of each that there had been no 
news of Peter — no awful, ghastly news, which was 
what I most had dreaded in my dull state between 
sleeping and waking. 

“ The same result of all the searching had brought 
something of the same relief to my mother, to whom, 
I am sure, the thought that Peter might even then be 
hanging dead in some of the familiar home places had 
caused that never-ending walk of yesterday. Her 
soft eyes never were the same again after that ; they 
had always a restless, craving look, as if seeking for 
what they could not find. Oh! it was an awful time ; 
coming down like a thunderbolt on the still sunny 
day when the lilacs were all in bloom.” 

“Where was Mr. Peter?” said I. 

“ He had made his way to Liverpool ; and there 
was war then ; and some of the king’s ships lay off 


102 


CRANFORD 


the mouth of the Mersey ; and they were only too 
glad to have a fine likely boy such as him (five foot 
nine he was) come to offer himself. The captain 
wrote to my father, and Peter wrote to my mother. 
Stay ! those letters will be somewhere here.” 

We lighted the candle, and found the captain’s 
letter and Peter’s too. And we also found a little 
simple begging letter from Mrs. Jenkyns to Peter, 
addressed to him at the house of an old schoolfel- 
low, whither she fancied he might have gone. They 
had returned it unopened ; and unopened it had 
remained ever since, having been inadvertently put 
by among the other letters of that time. This is 
it — 

“My dearest Peter — You did not think we 
should be so sorry as we are, I know, or you would 
never have gone away. You are too good. Your 
father sits and sighs till my heart aches to hear him. 
He cannot hold up his head for grief; and yet he 
only did what he thought was right. Perhaps he 
has been too severe, and perhaps I have not been 
kind enough ; but God knows how we love you, my 
dear only boy. Don looks sorry you are gone. 
Come back, and make us happy, who love you so 
much. I know you will come back.” 

But Peter did not come back. That spring day 
was the last time he ever saw his mother’s face. The 
writer of the letter — the last — the only person who 
had ever seen what was written in it, was dead Ions - 
ago ; and I, a stranger, not born at the time when 
this occurrence took place, was the one to open it. 


POOR PETER 


103 


The captain’s letter summoned the father and 
mother to Liverpool instantly, if they wished to see 
their boy ; and, by some of the wild chances of life, 
the captain’s letter had been detained somewhere, 
somehow. 

Miss Matty went on, “And it was race-time, and all 
the post-horses at Cranford were gone to the races ; 
but my father and mother set off in our own gig — 
and oh ! my dear, they were too late — the ship was 
gone ! And now read Peter’s letter to my mother ! ” 

It was full of love, and sorrow, and pride in his new 
profession, and a sore sense of his disgrace in the 
eyes of the people at Cranford ; but ending with a pas- 
sionate entreaty that she would come and see him 
before he left the Mersey : “ Mother ! we may go 
into battle. I hope we shall, and lick those French.; 
but I must see you again before that time.” 

“ And she was too late,” said Miss Matty ; “ too 
late ! ” 

We sat in silence, pondering on the full meaning 
of those sad, sad words. At length I asked Miss 
Matty to tell me how her mother bore it. 

“ Oh ! ” she said, “ she was patience itself. She 
had never been strong, and this weakened her terri- 
bly. My father used to sit looking at her : far more 
sad than she was. He seemed as if he could look at 
nothing else when she was by ; and he was so hum- 
ble — so very gentle now. He would, perhaps, speak 
in his old way — laying down the law, as it were — 
and then, in a minute or two, he would come round 
and put his hand on our shoulders, and ask us in a 
low voice if he had said anything to hurt us. I did 


104 


CRANFORD 


not wonder at his speaking so to Deborah, for she 
was so clever ; but I could not bear to hear him talk- 
ing so to me. 

“ But, you see, he saw what we did not — that it 
was killing my mother. Yes ! killing her (put out 
the candle, my dear; I can talk better in the dark), 
for she was but a frail woman, and ill fitted to stand 
the fright and shock she had gone through ; and she 
would smile at him and comfort him, not in words, 
but in her looks and tones, which were always cheer- 
ful when he was there. And she would speak of how 
she thought Peter stood a good chance of being 
admiral very soon — he was so brave and clever ; and 
how she thought of seeing him in his navy uniform, 
and what sort of hats admirals wore ; and how much 
more fit he was to be a sailor than a clergyman ; and 
all in that way, just to make my father think she 
was quite glad of what came of that unlucky morn- 
ing’s work, and the flogging which was always in 
his mind, as we all knew. But oh, my dear ! the 
bitter, bitter -crying she had when she was alone ; 
and at last, as she grew weaker, she could not keep 
her tears in when Deborah or me was by, and would 
give us message after message for Peter (his ship had 
gone to the Mediterranean, or somewhere down there, 
and then he was ordered off to India, and there was 
no overland route then) ; but she still said that no 
one knew where their death lay in wait, and that we 
were not to think hers was near. We did not think 
it, but we knew it, as we saw her fading away. 

“Well, my dear, it’s very foolish of me, I know, 
when in all likelihood I am so near seeing her again. 


POOR PETER 


105 


“And only think, love ! the very day after her 
death — for she did not live quite a twelvemonth after 
Peter went away — the very day after — came a parcel 
for her from India — from her poor boy. It was a 
large, soft, white India shawl, with just a little narrow 
border all round ; just what my mother would have 
liked. 

“We thought it might rouse my father, for he had 
sat with her hand in his all night long ; so Deborah 
took it in to him, and Peter’s letter to her, and all. 
At first, he took no notice ; and we tried to make a 
kind of light careless talk about the shawl, opening it 
out and admiring it. Then, suddenly, he got up, and 
spoke : i She shall be buried in it,’ he said ; ‘ Peter 
shall have that comfort ; and she would have liked it.’ 

“Well, perhaps it was not reasonable, but what 
could we do or say ? One gives people in grief their 
own way. He took it up and felt it : ^ It is just such 
a shawl as she wished for when she was married, and 
her mother did not give it her. I did not know of it 
till after, or she should have had it — she should ; but 
she shall have it now.’ 

“ My mother looked so lovely in her death ! She 
was always pretty, and now she looked fair, and 
waxen, and young — younger than Deborah, as she 
stood trembling and shivering by her. We decked 
her in the long soft folds; she lay smiling, as if 
pleased ; and people came — all Cranford came — to 
beg to see her, for they had loved her dearly, as well 
they might ; and the countrywomen brought posies ; 
old Clare’s wife brought some white violets, and 
begged they might lie on her breast. 


306 


CRANFORD 


“ Deborah said to me, the day of my mother’s fun- 
eral, that if she had a hundred offers she never would 
marry and leave my father. It was not very likely 
she would have so many — I don’t know that she had 
one ; but it was not less to her credit to say so. She 
was such a daughter to my father as I think there 
never was before or since. His eyes failed him, and 
she read book after book, and wrote, and copied, and 
was always at his service in any parish business. 
She could do many more things than my poor mother 
could ; she even once wrote a letter to the bishop for 
my father. But he missed my mother sorely ; the 
whole parish noticed it. Not that he was less active ; 
I think he was more so, and more patient in helping 
every one. I did all I could to set Deborah at liberty 
to be with him ; for I knew I was good for little, and 
that my best work in the world was to do odd jobs 
quietly, and set others at liberty. But my father was 
a changed man.” 

“ Did Mr. Peter ever come home ? ” 

“Yes, once. He came home a lieutenant; he did 
not get to be admiral. And he and my father were 
such friends ! My father took him into every house 
in the parish, he was so proud of him. He never 
walked out without Peter’s arm to lean upon. Deb- 
orah used to smile (I don’t think we ever laughed 
again after my mother’s death), and say she was quite 
put in a corner. Not but what my father always 
wanted her when there was letter-writing or reading 

o o 

to be done, or anything to be settled.” 

“And then ?” said I, after a pause. 

“ Then Peter went to sea again ; and, by and by. 


POOR PETER 


107 



my father died, blessing us both, and thanking Deb- 
orah for all she had been to him ; and, of course, our 


108 


CRANFORD 


circumstances were changed ; and, instead of living at 
the rectory, and keeping three maids and a man, we 
had to come to this small house, and be content with 
a servant-of-all-work ; but as Deborah used to say, 
we have always lived genteelly, even if circumstances 
have compelled us to simplicity. Poor Deborah ! ” 

“ And Mr. Peter ? ” asked I. 

“ Oh, there was some great war in India — I forget 
what they call it — and we have never heard of Peter 
since then. I believe he is dead myself ; and it some- 
times fidgets me that we have never put on mourning 
for him. And then again, when I sit by myself, and 
all the house is still, I think I hear his step coming up 
the street, and my heart begins to flutter and beat ; 
but the sound always goes past — and Peter never 
comes.” 

“That’s Martha back ? No! /’ll go, my dear; I 
can alwdys find my way in the dark, you know. And 
a blow of fresh air at the door will do my head good, 
and it’s rather got a trick of aching.” 

So she pattered off. I had lighted the candle, to 
give the room a cheerful appearance against her re- 
turn. 

“ Was it Martha ? ” asked I. 

“Yes. And I am rather uncomfortable, fori heard 
such a strange noise, just as I was opening the door.” 

“ Where ? ” I asked, for her eyes were round with 
affright. 

“In the street — just outside — it sounded like ■” 

“ Talking ? ” I put in, as she hesitated a little. 

“ No ! kissing ■ ” 



One morning, as Miss Matty and I sat at our work 
— it was before twelve o’clock, and Miss Matty had 
not changed the cap with yellow ribbons that had 
been Miss Jenkyn’s best, and which Miss Matty was 
now wearing out in private, putting on the one made 
in imitation of Mrs. Jamieson’s at all times when she 
expected to be seen — Martha came up, and asked if 
Miss Betty Barker might speak to her mistress. Miss 
Matty assented, and quickly disappeared to change 
the yellow ribbons, while Miss Barker came upstairs ; 
but, as she had forgotten her spectacles, and was rather 
flurried by the unusual time of the visit, I was not 
surprised to see her return with one cap on the top 
of the other. She was quite unconscious of it her- 
self, and looked at us with bland satisfaction. Nor do 
I think Miss Barker perceived it ; for, putting aside the 
little circumstance that she was not so young as she 
had been, she was very much absorbed in her errand, 
which she delivered herself of with an oppressive mod- 
esty that found vent in endless apologies. 


109 


110 


CRANFORD 


Miss Betty Barker was the daughter of the old clerk 
at Cranford who had officiated in Mr. Jenkyn’s time. 
She and her sister had had pretty good situations as 
ladies 1 maids, and had saved money enough to set up 
a milliner’s shop, which had been patronised by the 
ladies in the neighbourhood. Lady Arley, for in- 
stance, would occasionally give Miss Barkers the pat- 
tern of an old cap of hers, which they immediately 
copied and circulated among the Hite of Cranford. 

I say the elite , for Miss Barkers had caught the trick 
of the place, and piqued themselves upon their “ aris- 
tocratic connection.” They would not sell their caps 
and ribbons to any one without a pedigree. Many a 
farmer’s wife or daughter turned away huffed from 
Miss Barkers’ select millinery, and went rather to 
the universal shop, where the profits of brown soap 
and moist sugar enabled the proprietor to go straight 
to (Paris, he said, until he found his customers too 
patriotic and John Bullish to wear what the Moun- 
seers wore) London, where, as he often told his cus- 
tomers, Queen Adelaide had appeared, only the very 
week before, in a cap exactly like the one he showed 
them, trimmed with yellow and blue ribbons, and 
had been complimented by King William on the be- 
coming nature of her head-dress. 

Miss Barkers, who confined themselves to truth, 
and did not approve of miscellaneous customers, 
throve notwithstanding. They were self-denying, 
good people. Many a time have I seen the eldest of 
them (she that had been maid to Mrs. Jamieson) 
carrying out some delicate mess to a poor person. 
They only aped their betters in having “ nothing to 


VISITING 


111 


do” with the class immediately below theirs. And 
when Miss Barker died, their profits and income 
were found to be such that Miss Betty was justified 
in shutting up shop and retiring from business. She 
also ’(as I think I have before said) set up her cow ; 
a mark of respectability in Cranford almost as decided 
as setting up a gig is among some people. She 
dressed finer than any lady in Cranford ; and we did 
not wonder at it ; for it was understood that she was 
wearing out all the bonnets and caps and outrageous 
ribbons which had once formed her stock-in-trade. 
It was five or six years since she had given up shop, 
so in any other place than Cranford her dress might 
have been considered pass&e. 

And now Miss Betty Barker had called to invite 
Miss Matty to tea at her house on the following 
Tuesday. She gave me also an impromptu invita- 
tion, as I happened to be a visitor — though I could 
see she had a little fear lest, since my father had gone 
to live in Drumble, he might have engaged in that 
“ horrid cotton trade,” and so dragged his family 
down out of “ aristocratic society.” She prefaced 
this invitation with so many apologies that she quite 
excited my curiosity. “ Her presumption ” was to be 
excused. What had she been doing? She seemed 
so overpowered by it, I could only think that she had 
been writing to Queen Adelaide to ask for a receipt 
for washing lace ; but the act which she so character- 
ised was only an invitation she had carried to her sis- 
ter’s former mistress, Mrs. Jamieson. “Her former 
occupation considered, could Miss Matty excuse the 
liberty ? ” Ah ! thought I, she has found out that 


112 


CRANFORD 


double cap, and is going to rectify Miss Matty’s 
head-dress. No.! it was simply to extend her invi- 
tation to Miss Matty and to me. Miss Matty bowed 
acceptance ; and I wondered that, in the graceful 
action, she did not feel the unusual weight and 
extraordinary height of her head-dress. But I do 
not think she did, for she recovered her balance, and 
went on talking to Miss Betty in a kind, condescend- 
ing manner, very different from the fidgety way she 
would have had if she had suspected how singular 
her appearance was. 

“Mrs. Jamieson is coming, I think you said?” 
asked Miss Matty. 

“Yes. Mrs. Jamieson most kindly and conde- 
scendingly said she would be happy to come. One 
little stipulation she made, that she should bring 
Carlo. I told her that if I had a weakness, it was 
for dogs.” 

“And Miss Pole?” questioned Miss Matty, who 
was thinking of her pool at Preference, in which 
Carlo would not be available as a partner. 

“ I am going to ask Miss Pole. Of course, I could 
not think of asking her until I had asked you, 
madam — the rector’s daughter, madam. Believe 
me, I do not forget the situation my father held under 
yours.” 

“And Mrs. Forrester, of course?” 

“ And Mrs. Forrester. I thought, in fact, of going 
to her before I went to Miss Pole. Although her 
circumstances are changed, madam, she was born a 
Tyrrell, and we can never forget her alliance to the 
Bigges, of Bigelow Hall.” 


VISITING 


113 


Miss Matty cared much more for the little circum- 
stance of her being a very good card-player. 

“ Mrs. Fitz-Adam — I suppose ” 

“No, madam. I must draw a line somewhere. 
Mrs. Jamieson would not, I think, like to meet Mrs. 
Fitz-Adam. I have the greatest respect for Mrs. 
Fitz-Adam — but I cannot think her fit society for 
such ladies as Mrs. Jamieson and Miss Matilda Jen- 
kyns.” 

Miss Betty Barker bowed low to Miss Matty, and 
pursed up her mouth. She looked at me with side- 
long dignity, as much as to say, although a retired 
milliner, she was no democrat, and understood the 
difference of ranks. 

“ May I beg you to come as near half-past six, to 
my little dwelling, as possible, Miss Matilda ? Mrs. 
Jamieson dines at five, but has kindly promised not 
to delay her visit beyond that time - — half-past six.” 
And with a swimming curtsey Miss Betty Barker 
took her leave. 

My prophetic soul foretold a visit that- afternoon 
from Miss Pole, who usually came to call on Miss 
Matilda after any event — or indeed in sight of any 
event — to talk it over with her. 

“Miss Betty told me it was to be a choice and 
select few,” said Miss Pole, as she and Miss Matty 
compared notes. 

“Yes, so she said. Not even Mrs. Fitz-Adam.” 

Now Mrs. Fitz-Adam was the widowed sister of 
the Cranford surgeon, whom I have named before. 
Their parents were respectable farmers, content with 
their station. The name of these good people was 


114 


CRANFORD 


Hoggins. Mr. Hoggins was the Cranford doctor 
now ; we disliked the name and considered it coarse ; 
but, as Miss Jenkyns said, if he changed it to Piggins 
it would not be much better. We had hoped to 
discover a relationship between him and that Mar- 
chioness of Exeter whose name was Molly Hoggins ; 
but the man, careless of his own interests, utterly 
ignored and denied any such relationship, although, 
as dear Miss Jenkyns had said, he had a sister called 
Mary, and the same Christian names were very apt 
to run in families. 

Soon after Miss Mary Hoggins married Mr. Fitz- 
Adam she disappeared from the neighbourhood for 
many years. She did not move in a sphere in Cran- 
ford society sufficiently high to make any of us care 
to know what Mr. Fitz-Adam was. He died and 
was gathered to his fathers without our ever having 
thought about him at all. And then Mrs. Fitz-Adam 
reappeared in Cranford (“as bold as a lion,” Miss 
Pole said), a well-to-do widow, dressed in rustling 
black silk, so soon after her husband’s death that 
poor Miss Jenkyns was justified in the remark she 
made, that “ bombazine would have shown a deeper 
sense of her loss.” 

I remember the convocation of ladies who assem- 
bled to decide whether or not Mrs. Fitz-Adam should 
be called upon by the old blue-blooded inhabitants 
of Cranford. She had taken a large rambling house, 
which had been usually considered to confer a patent 
of gentility upon its tenant, because, once upon a 
time, seventy or eighty years before, the spinster 
daughter of an earl had resided in it. I am not sure 


VISITING 


115 


if the inhabiting this house was not also believed to 
convey some unusual power of intellect; for the 
earl’s daughter. Lady Jane, had a sister, Lady Anne, 
who had married a general officer in the time of the 
American war, and this general officer had written 
one or two comedies, which were still acted on the 
London boards, and which, when we saw them adver- 
tised, made us all draw up, and feel that Drury Lane 
was paying a very pretty compliment to Cranford. 
Still, it was not at all a settled thing that Mrs. Fitz- 
Adam was to be visited, when dear Miss Jenkyns 
died ; and, with her, something of the clear knowl- 
edge of the strict code of gentility went out too. As 
Miss Pole observed, “ As most of the ladies of good 
family in Cranford were elderly spinsters, or widows 
without children, if we did not relax a little, and 
become less exclusive, by and by we should have no 
society at all.” 

Mrs. Forrester continued on the same side. 

“ She had always understood that Fitz meant some- 
thing aristocratic ; there was Fitz-Roy — she thought 
that some of the King’s children had been called 
Fitz-Roy; and there was Fitz-Clarence now — they 
were the children of dear good King William the 
Fourth. Fitz-Adam! — it was a pretty name, and 
she thought it very probably meant 4 Child of Adam.’ 
No one, who had not some good blood in their veins, 
would dare to be called Fitz ; there was a deal in a 
name — she had had a cousin who spelt his name 
with two little ffs — ffoulkes — and he always looked 
down upon capital letters, and said they belonged to 
lately-invented families. She had been afraid he 


116 


CRANFORD 


would die a bachelor, he was so very choice. When 
he met with a Mrs. ffarringdon, at a watering-place, 
he took to her immediately ; and a very pretty gen- 
teel woman she was — a widow, with a very good 
fortune ; and 4 my cousin,’ Mr. ffoulkes, married her ; 
and it was all owing to her two little ffs.” 

Mrs. Fitz-Adam did not stand a chance of meet- 
ing with a Mr. Fitz-anything in Cranford, so that 
could not have been her motive for settling there. 
Miss Matty thought it might have been the hope of 
being admitted into the society of the place, which 
would certainly be a very agreeable rise for ci-devant 
Miss Hoggins ; and if this had been her hope it 
would be cruel to disappoint her. 

So everybody called upon Mrs. Fitz-Adam — 
everybody but Mrs. Jamieson, who used to show how 
honourable she was by never seeing Mrs. Fitz-Adam 
when they met at the Cranford parties. There 
would be only eight or ten ladies in the room, and 
Mrs. Fitz-Adam was the largest of all, and she 
invariably used to stand up when Mrs. Jamieson 
came in, and curtsey very low to her whenever she 
turned in her direction — so low, in fact, that I think 
Mrs. Jamieson must have looked at the wall above 
her, for she never moved a muscle of her face, no 
more than if she had not seen her. Still Mrs. Fitz- 
Adam persevered. 

The spring evenings were getting bright and long 
when three or four ladies in calashes met at Miss 
Barker’s door. Do you know what a calash is? It 
is a covering worn over caps, not unlike the heads 
fastened on old-fashioned gigs ; but sometimes it is 


VISITING 


117 


not quite so large. This kind of headgear always 
made an awful impression on the children in Cranford ; 
and now two or three left off their play in the quiet, 
sunny, little street, and gathered in wondering silence 
round Miss Pole, Miss Matty, and myself. We were 
silent too, so that we could hear loud suppressed 
whispers inside Miss Barker’s house : “ Wait, Peggy ! 
wait till I’ve run upstairs and washed my hands. 
When I cough, open the door; I’ll not be a minute.” 

And, true enough, it was not a minute before we 
heard a noise, between a sneeze and a crow ; on 
which the door flew open. Behind it stood a round- 
eyed maiden, all aghast at the honourable company 
of calashes, who marched in without a word. She 
recovered presence of mind enough to usher us into' a 
small room, which had been the shop, but was now 
converted into a temporary dressing-room. There 
we unpinned and shook ourselves, and arranged our. 
features before the glass into a sweet and gracious 
company-face ; and then, bowing backwards with 
“After you, ma’am,” we allowed Mrs. -Forrester to 
take precedence up the narrow staircase that led to 
Miss Barker’s drawing-room. There she sat, as 
stately and composed as though we had never heard 
that odd-sounding cough, from which her throat must 
have been even then sore and rough. Kind, gentle, 
shabbily-dressed Mrs. Forrester was immediately con- 
ducted to the second place of honour — a seat 
arranged something like Prince Albert’s near the 
Queen’s — good, but not so good. The place of pre- 
eminence was, of course, reserved for the Honourable 
Mrs. Jamieson, who presently came panting up the 


118 


CRANFORD 


stairs — Carlo rushing round her on her progress, as 
if he meant to trip her up. 

And now Miss Betty Barker was a proud and happy 
woman ! She stirred the fire, and shut the door, and 
sat as near to it as she could, quite on the edge of her 
chair. When Peggy came in, tottering under the 
weight of the tea-tray, I noticed that Miss Barker was 
sadly afraid lest Peggy should not keep her distance 
sufficiently. She and her mistress were on very 
familiar terms in their every-day intercourse, and 
Peggy wanted now to make several little confidences 
to her, which Miss Barker was on thorns to hear, but 
which she thought it her duty, as a lady, to repress. 
So she turned away from all Peggy’s asides and signs ; 
but she made one or two very malapropos answers to 
what was said ; and at last, seized with a bright idea, 
she exclaimed, “ Poor, sweet Carlo ! I’m forgetting 
him. Come downstairs with me, poor ittie doggie, 
and it shall have its tea, it shall ! ” 

In a few minutes she returned, bland and benignant 
as before : but I thought she had forgotten to give 
the “ poor ittie doggie ” anything to eat, judging by 
the avidity with which he swallowed down chance 
pieces of cake. The tea-tray was abundantly loaded 
— I was pleased to see it, I was so hungry ; but I was 
afraid the ladies present might think it vulgarly 
heaped up. I know they would have done at their 
own houses ; but somehow the heaps disappeared 
here. I saw Mrs. Jamieson eating seed-cake, slowly 
and considerately, as she did everything ; and I was 
rather surprised, for I knew she had told us, on the 
occasion of her last party, that she never had it in 


VISITING 


119 


her house, it reminded her so much of scented soap. 
She always gave us Savoy biscuits. However, Mrs. 
Jamieson was kindly indulgent to Miss Barker’s want 
of knowledge of the customs of high life ; and, to 
spare her feelings, ate three large pieces of seed-cake, 
with a placid, ruminating expression of countenance, 
not unlike a cow’s. 

After tea there was some little demur and difficulty. 
We were six in number; four could play at Prefer- 
ence, and for the other two there was Cribba’ge. But 
all, except myself (I was rather afraid of the Cranford 
ladies at cards, for it was the most earnest and serious 
business they ever engaged in) , were anxious to be of 
the “pool.” Even Miss Barker, while declaring she 
did not know Spadille from Manille, was evidently 
hankering to take a hand. The dilemma was soon 
put an end to by a singular kind of noise. If a Baron’s 
daughter-in-law could ever be supposed to snore, I 
should have said Mrs. Jamieson did so ‘then ; for, 
overcome by the heat of the room, and inclined to 
doze by nature, the temptation of that very comfort- 
able arm-chair had been too much for her, and Mrs. 
Jamieson was nodding. Once or twice she opened 
her eyes with an effort, and calmly but unconsciously 
smiled upon us ; but, by and by, even her benevo- 
lence was not equal to this exertion, and she was 
sound asleep. 

“It is very gratifying to me,” whispered Miss Bar- 
ker at the card-table to her three opponents, whom, 
notwithstanding her ignorance of the game, she was 
“ basting ” most unmercifully — “very gratifying in- 
deed, to see how completely Mrs. Jamieson feels at 


120 


CRANFORD 


home in my poor little dwelling ; she could not have 
paid me a greater compliment.” 

Miss Barker provided me with some literature in 
the shape of three or four handsomely-bound fashion- 
books ten or twelve years old, observing, as she put a 
little table and a candle for my especial benefit, that 
she knew young people liked to look at pictures. 



Hush , ladies! if you please , hush!” 


Carlo lay and snorted, and started at his mistress’s 
feet. He, too, was quite at home. 

The card-table was an animated scene to watch ; 
four ladies’ heads, with niddle-noddling caps, all 
nearly meeting over the middle of the table in their 
eagerness to whisper quick enough and loud enough : 
and every now and then came Miss Barker’s “ Hush, 
ladies! if you please, hush! Mrs. Jamieson is asleep.” 

It was very difficult to steer clear between Mrs, 



VISITING 


121 


Forrester’s deafness and Mrs. Jamieson’s sleepiness. 
But Miss Barker managed her arduous task well. 
She repeated the whisper to Mrs. Forrester, distorting 
her face considerably, in order to show, by the mo- 
tions of her lips, what was said ; and then she smiled 
kindly all round at us, and murmured to herself, 
“Very gratifying indeed; I wish my poor sister had 
been alive to see this day.” 

Presently the door was thrown wide open ; Carlo 
started to his feet, with a loud snapping bark, and 
Mrs. Jamieson awoke ; or, perhaps, she had not been 
asleep — as she said almost directly, the room had 
been so light she had been glad to keep her eyes 
shut, but had been listening with great interest to all 
our amusing and agreeable conversation. Peggy 
came in once more, red with importance. Another 
tray! “ Oh, gentility ! ” thought I, “can you endure 
this last shock?” For Miss Barker had ordered 
(nay, I doubt not, prepared, although she did say, 
“Why! Peggy, what have you brought us?” and 
looked pleasantly surprised at the unexpected pleasure) 
all sorts of good things for supper — scalloped oysters, 
'potted lobsters, jelly, a dish called “ little Cupids ” 
(which in great favour with the Cranford ladies, 
although too expensive to be given, except on solemn 
and state occasions — macaroons sopped in brandy, 
I should have called it, if I had not known its more 
refined and classical name). In short, we were 
evidently to be feasted with all that was sweetest and 
best ; and we thought it better to submit graciously, 
even at the cost of our gentility — which never 
ate suppers in general, but which, like most non- 


122 


CRANFORD 


supper-eaters, was particularly hungry on all special 
occasions. 

Miss Barker, in her former sphere, had, I daresay, 
been made acquainted with the beverage they call 
cherry-brandy. We none of us had ever seen such a 
thing, and rather shrank back when she proffered it 
us — “just a little, leetle glass, ladies ; after the oysters 
and lobsters, you know. Shell-fish are sometimes 
thought not very wholesome.” We all shook our 
heads like female mandarins; but, at last, Mrs. 
Jamieson suffered herself to be persuaded, and we 
followed her lead. It was not exactly unpalatable, 
though so hot and so strong that we thought our- 
selves bound to give evidence that we were not accus- 
tomed to such things by coughing terribly — almost 
as strangely as Miss Barker had done, before we were 
admitted by Peggy. 

“ It’s very strong,” said Miss Pole, as she put 
down her empty glass ; “ I do believe there’s spirit 
in it.” 

“Only a little drop — just necessary to make it 
keep,” said Miss Barker. “You know we put brandy- 
paper over preserves to make them keep. I often feel* 
tipsy myself from eating damson tart.” 

I question whether damson tart would have opened 
Mrs. Jamieson’s heart as the cherry-brandy did; but 
she told us of a coming event, respecting which she 
had been quite silent till that moment. 

“My sister-in-law, Lady Glenmire, is coming to 
stay with me.” 

There was a chorus of “Indeed!” and then a 
pause. Each one rapidly reviewed her wardrobe, 


VISITING 123 

as to its fitness to appear in the presence of a Baron’s 
widow ; for, of course, a series of small festivals were 
always held in Cranford on the arrival of a visitor at 
any of our friends’ houses. We felt very pleasantly 
excited on the present occasion. 

Not long after this the maids and the lanterns were 
announced. Mrs. Jamieson had the sedan chair, 
which had squeezed itself into Miss Barker’s narrow 
lobby with some difficulty, and most literally “ stopped 
the way.” It required some skilful manoeuvring on 
the part of the old chairmen (shoemakers by day, 
but when summoned to carry the sedan dressed up in 
a strange old livery — long greatcoats, with small 
capes, coeval with the sedan, and similar to the dress 
of the class in Hogarth’s pictures) to edge, and back, 
and try at it again, and finally to succeed in carrying 
their burden out of Miss Barker’s front door. Then 
we heard their quick pit-a-pat along the quiet little 
street as we put on our calashes and pinned up our 
gowns ; Miss Barker hovering about us with offers of 
help, which, if she had not remembered her former 
occupation, and wished us to forget it, would have 
been much more pressing. 



Early the next morning — directly after twelve — 
Miss Pole made her appearance at Miss Matty’s. 
Some very trifling piece of business was alleged as a 
reason for the call ; but there was evidently some- 
thing behind. At last out it came. 

“ By the way, you’ll think I’m strangely ignorant ; 
but, do you really know, I am puzzled how we ought 
to address Lady Glenmire. Do you say ‘Your Lady- 
ship,’ where you would say ‘ you ’ to a common per- 
son ? I have been puzzling all morning ; and are we 
to say ‘My Lady,’ instead of ‘Ma’am’ ? Now you 
knew Lady Arley — will you kindly tell me the most 
correct way of speaking to the Peerage ? ” 

Poor Miss Matty ! she took off her spectacles and 
she put them on again — but how Lady Arley was 
addressed, she could not remember. 

124 




“YOUR LADYSHIP 


125 


“ It is so long ago,” she said. “ Dear! dear! how 
stupid I am ! I don’t think I ever saw her more than 
twice. I know we use to call Sir Peter, ‘ Sir Peter’ 
— but he came much oftener to see us than Lady 
Arley did. Deborah would have known in a minute. 
‘ My lady ’ — ‘ your ladyship.’ It sounds very strange, 
and as if it was not natural. I never thought of it 
before ; but, now you have named it, I am all in a 
puzzle.” 

It was very certain Miss Pole would obtain no wise 
decision from Miss Matty, who got more bewildered 
every moment, and more perplexed as to etiquettes 
of address. 

“Well, I really think,” said Miss Pole, “Iliad 
better just go and tell Mrs. Forrester about our little 
difficulty. One sometimes grows nervous ; and yet 
one would not have Lady Glenmire think we were 
quite ignorant of the etiquettes of high life in Cran- 
ford.” 

“ And will you just step in here, dear Miss Pole, 
as you come back, please, and tell me what you de- 
cide upon? Whatever you and Mrs. Forrester fix 
upon, will be quite right, I’m sure. ‘Lady Arley,’ 
‘Sir Peter,’” said Miss Matty to herself, trying to 
recall the old forms of words. 

“ Who is Lady Glenmire? ” asked I. 

“Oh, she’s the widow of Mr. Jamieson — th^’s 
Mrs. Jamieson’s late husband, you know — widow of 
his eldest brother. Mrs. Jamieson was a Miss 
Walker, daughter of Governor Walker. ‘ Your lady- 
ship.’ My dear, if they fix on that way of speaking, 
you must just let me practise a little on you first, for 


126 


CRANFORD 


I shall feel so foolish and hot saying it the first time 
to Lady Glenmire.” 

It was really a relief to Miss Matty when Mrs. 
Jamieson came on a very unpolite errand. I notice 
that apathetic people have more quiet impertinence 
than others ; and Mrs. Jamieson came now to insin- 
uate pretty plainly that she did not particularly wish 
that the Cranford ladies should call upon her sister- 
in-law. I can hardly say how she made this clear ; 
for I grew very indignant and warm, while with slow 
deliberation she was explaining her wishes to Miss 
Matty, who, a true lady herself, could hardly under- 
stand the feeling which made Mrs. Jamieson wish to 
appear to her noble' sister-in-law as if she only visited 
“county” families. Miss Matty remained puzzled 
and perplexed long after I had found out the object 
of Mrs. Jamieson’s visit. 

When she did understand the drift of the honoura- 
ble lady’s call, it was pretty to see with what quiet 
dignity she received the intimation thus uncourte- 
ously given. She was not in the least hurt — she 
was of too gentle a spirit for that ; nor was she ex- 
actly conscious of disapproving of Mrs. Jamieson’s 
conduct ; but there was something of this feeling in 
her mind, I am sure, which made her pass from the 
subject to others in a less flurried and more composed 
manner than usual. Mrs. Jamieson was, indeed, the 
more flurried of the two, and I could see she was glad 
to take her leave. 

A little while afterwards Miss Pole returned, red 
and indignant. “Well! to be sure! You’ve had 
Mrs. Jamieson here, I find from Martha; and we are 


YOUR LADYSHIP 


127 


not to call on Lady Glenmire. Yes ! I met Mrs. 
Jamieson, half-way between here and Mrs. Forres- 
ter’s, and she told me ; she took me so by surprise, 
I had nothing to say. I wish I had thought of some- 
thing very sharp and sarcastic; I daresay I shall to- 
night. And Lady Glenmire is but the widow of a 
Scotch baron after all ! I went on to look at Mrs. 
Forrester’s Peerage, to see who this lady was, that is 
to be kept under a glass case : widow of a Scotch 
peer — never sat in the House of Lords — and as 
poor as Job, I daresay; and she — fifth daughter of 
some Mr. Campbell or other. You are the daughter 
of a rector, at any rate, and related to the Arleys ; 
and Sir Peter might have been Viscount Arley, every 
one says.” 

Miss Matty tried to soothe Miss Pole, but in vain. 
That lady, usually so kind and good-humoured, was 
now in a full flow of anger. 

“And I went and ordered a cap this morning, to 
be quite ready,” said she, at last letting out the 
secret which gave sting to Mrs. Jamieson’s intima- 
tion. “ Mrs. Jamieson shall see if it is so easy to get 
me to make fourth at a pool when ‘she has none of 
her fine Scotch relations with her ! ” 

In coming out of church, the first Sunday on which 
Lady Glenmire appeared in Cranford, we sedulously 
talked together, and turned our backs on Mrs. Jam- 
ieson and her guest. If we might not call on her, 
we would not even look at her, though we were dying 
with curiosity to know what she was like. We had 
the comfort of questioning Martha in the afternoon. 
Martha did not belong to a sphere of society whose 


128 


CRANFORD 


observation could be an implied compliment to Lady 
Glenmire, and Martha had made good use of her 
eyes. 

“ Well, ma’am ! is it the little lady with Mrs. Jam- 
ieson, you mean? I thought you would like more to 
know how young Mrs. Smith was dressed, her being 
a bride.” (Mrs. Smith was the butcher’s wife.) 

Miss Pole said, “ Good gracious me ! as if we 
cared about a Mrs. Smith ; ” but was silent as Martha 
resumed her speech. 

“The little lady in Mrs. Jamieson’s pew had on, 
ma’am, rather an old black silk, and a shepherd’s 
plaid cloak, ma’am, and very bright black eyes she 
had, ma’am, and a pleasant, sharp face ; not over 
young, ma’am, but yet, I should guess, younger than 
Mrs. Jamieson herself. She looked up and down the 
church, like .a bird, and nipped up her petticoats, when 
she came out, as quick and sharp as ever I see. I’ll 
tell you what, ma’am, she’s more like Mrs. Deacon, 
at the ‘ Coach and Horses,’ nor any one.” 

“Hush, Martha!” said Miss Matty, “that’s not 
respectful.” 

“Isn’t it, ma’am? I beg pardon, I’m sure; but 
Jem Hearn said so as well. He said, she was just 
such a sharp stirring sort of a body ” 

“ Lady,” said Miss Pole. 

“Lady — as Mrs. Deacon.” 

Another Sunday passed away, and we still averted 
our eyes from Mrs. Jamieson and her guest, and 
made remarks to ourselves that we thought were very 
severe — almost too much so. Miss Matty was evi- 
dently uneasy at our sarcastic manner of speaking. 


YOUR LADYSHIP 


129 


Perhaps by this time Lady Glenmire had found out 
that Mrs. Jamieson’s was not the gayest, liveliest 
house in the world; perhaps Mrs. Jamieson had 
found out that most of the county families were in 
London, and that those who remained in the country 
were not so alive as they might have been to the cir- 
cumstance of Lady Glenmire being in their neighbour- 
hood. Great events spring out of small causes ; so I 
will not pretend to say what induced Mrs. Jamieson 
to alter her determination of excluding the Cranford 
ladies, and send notes of invitation all round for a 
small party on the following Tuesday. Mr. Mulliner 
himself brought them round. He would always 
ignore the fact of there being a back-door to any 
house, and gave a louder rat-tat than his mistress, 
Mrs. Jamieson. He had three little notes, which he 
carried in a large basket, in order to impress his mis- 
tress with an idea of their great weight, though they 
might easily have gone into his waistcoat pocket. 

Miss Matty and I quietly decided we would 
have a previous engagement at home : it was the 
evening on which Miss Matty usually made candle- 
lighters of all the notes and letters of the week ; for 
on Mondays her accounts were always made straight 
— not a penny owing from the week before ; so, by a 
natural arrangement, making candle-lighters fell upon 
a Tuesday evening, and gave us a legitimate excuse 
for declining Mrs. Jamieson’s invitation. But before 
our answer was written, in came Miss Pole, with an 
open note in her hand. 

“So! ’’she said. “Ah! I see you have got your 
note too. Better late than never. I could have told 


130 


CRANFORD 



my Lady Glenmire she would be glad enough of our 
society before a fortnight was over.” 

“Yes,” said Miss Matty, “we’re asked for Tuesday 
evening. And perhaps you would just kindly bring 
your work across and drink tea with us that night. 


“ YOUR LADYSHIP 


131 


It is my usual regular time for looking over the last 
week’s bills, and notes, and letters, and making 
candle-lighters of them ; but that does not seem 
quite reason enough for saying I have a previous 
engagement at home, though I meant to make 
it do. Now, if you would come, my conscience 
would be quite at efase, and luckily the note is not 
written yet.” 

I saw Miss Pole’s countenance change while Miss 
Matty was speaking. 

“ Don’t you mean to go then? ” asked she. 

“ Oh no!” said Miss Matty quietly. “You don’t 
either, I suppose ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” replied Miss Pole. “Yes, I think 
I do,” said she rather briskly ; and on seeing Miss 
Matty look surprised, she added, “ You see, one 
would not like Mrs. Jamieson to think that anything 
she could do, or say, was of consequence enough to 
give offence ; it would be kind of letting down of our- 
selves, that I, for one, should not like. It would be 
too flattering to Mrs. Jamieson if we allowed her to 
suppose that what she had said affected us a week, 
nay, ten days afterwards.” 

“Well! I suppose it is wrong to be hurt and an- 
noyed so long about anything ; and, perhaps, after 
all, she did not mean to vex us. But I must say I 
could not have brought myself to say the things Mrs. 
Jamieson did about our not calling. I really don’t 
think I shall go.” 

“Oh, come! Miss Matty, you must go; you know 
our friend Mrs. Jamieson is much more phlegmatic 
than most people, and does not enter into the little 


132 


CRANFORD 


delicacies of feeling which you possess in so remark- 
able a degree.” 

“ I thought you possessed them too, that day Mrs. 
Jamieson called to tell us not to go,” said Miss 
Matty innocently. 

But Miss Pole, in addition to her delicacies of feel- 
ing, possessed a very smart cap, which she was 
anxious to show to an admiring world ; and so she 
seemed to forget all her angry words uttered not a 
fortnight before, and to be ready to act on what she 
called the great Christian principle of “Forgive and 
forget ” ; and she lectured dear Miss Matty so long on 
this head that she absolutely ended by assuring her 
it was her duty, as a deceased rector’s daughter, to 
buy a new cap and go to the party at Mrs. Jamieson’s. 
So “ we were most happy to accept,” instead of “ re- 
gretting that we were obliged to decline.” 

The expenditure on dress in Cranford was princi- 
pally in that one article referred to. If the heads 
were buried in smart new caps, the ladies were like 
ostriches, and cared not what became of their bodies. 
Old gowns, white and venerable collars, any number 
of brooches, up and down and everywhere (some with 
dogs’ eyes painted in them ; some that were like 
small picture-frames with mausoleums and weeping- 
willows neatly executed in hair inside ; some, again, 
with miniatures of ladies and gentlemen sweetly 
smiling out of a nest of stiff muslin), old brooches 
for a permanent ornament, and new caps to suit the 
fashion of the day — the ladies of Cranford always 
dressed with chaste elegance and propriety, as Miss 
Barker once prettily expressed it. 


YOUR LADYSHIP 


133 


And with three new caps, and a greater array of 
brooches than had ever been seen together at one time 
since Cranford was a town, did Mrs. Forrester, and 
Miss Matty, and Miss Pole appear on that memorable 
Tuesday evening. I counted seven brooches myself on 
Miss Pole’s dress. Two were fixed negligently in her 
cap (one was a butterfly made of Scotch pebbles, which 
a vivid imagination might believe to be the real insect); 
one fastened her net neckerchief ; one her collar ; one 
ornamented the front of her gown, midway between 
her throat and waist ; and another adorned the point 
of her stomacher. Where the seventh was I have 
forgotten, but it was somewhere about her, I am sure. 

But I am getting on too fast, in describing the dresses 
of the company. I should first relate the gathering on 
the way to Mrs. Jamieson’s. That lady lived in a large 
house just outside the town. A road which had known 
what it was to be a street ran right before the house, 
which opened out upon it without any intervening 
garden or court. Whatever the sun was about, he 
never shone on the front of that house. To be sure, 
the living rooms were at the back, looking on to a 
pleasant garden ; the front windows only belonged to 
kitchens and housekeepers’ rooms and pantries, and 
in one of them Mr. Mulliner was reported to sit. In- 
deed, looking askance, we often saw the back of a 
head covered with hair-powder, which also extended 
itself over his coat-collar down to his very waist ; and 
this imposing back was always engaged in reading the 
St. James's Chronicle , opened wide, which, in some 
degree, accounted for the length of time the said news- 
paper was in reaching us — equal subscribers with 


134 


CRANFORD 


Mrs. Jamieson, though, in right of her honourableness, 
she always had the reading of it first. This very 
Tuesday, the delay in forwarding the last number had 
been particularly aggravating ; just when both Miss 
Pole and Miss Matty, the former more especially, had 
been wanting to see it, in order to coach up the court 
news ready for the evening’s interview with the aris- 
tocracy. Miss Pole told us she had absolutely taken 
time by the forelock, and been dressed by five o’clock, 
in order to be ready if the St. James's Chronicle should 
come in at the last moment — the very St. James's 
Chronicle which the powdered head was tranquilly and 
composedly reading as we passed the accustomed 
window this evening. 

“ The impudence of the man ! ” said Miss Pole, in 
a low indignant whisper. “ I should like to ask him 
whether his mistress pays her quarter-share for his 
exclusive use.” 

We looked at her in admiration of the courage of 
her thought ; for Mr. Mulliner was an object of great 
awe to all of us. He seemed never to have forgotten 
his condescension in coming to live at Cranford. Miss 
Jenkyns, at times, had stood forth as the undaunted 
champion of her sex, and spoken to him on terms of 
equality ; but even Miss Jenkyns could get no higher. 
In his pleasantest and most gracious moods he looked 
like a sulky cockatoo. He did not speak except in 
gruff monosyllables. He would wait in the hall when 
we begged him not to wait, and then look deeply 
offended because we had kept him there, while, with 
trembling hasty hands we prepared ourselves for 
appearing in company. 


YOUR LADYSHIP 


135 


Miss Pole ventured on a small joke as we went 
upstairs, intended, though addressed to us, to afford 
Mr. Mulliner some slight amusement. We all smiled, 
in order to seem as if we felt at our ease, and 
timidly looked for Mr. Mulliner’s sympathy. Not a 
muscle of that wooden face had relaxed ; and we were 
grave in an instant. 

Mrs. Jamieson’s drawing-room was cheerful; the 
evening sun came streaming into it, and the large 
square window was clustered round with flowers. The 
furniture was white and gold ; not the later style, 
Louis Quatorze, I think they call it, all shells and 
twirls ; no, Mrs. Jamieson’s chairs and tables had not 
a curve or bend about them. The chair and table 
legs diminished as they neared the ground, and were 
straight and square in all their corners. The chairs 
were all a-row against the walls, with the exception of 
four or five, which stood in a circle round the fire. 
They were railed with white bars across the back, and 
nobbed with gold ; neither the railings nor the nobs 
invited to ease. There was a japanned table devoted 
to literature, on which lay a Bible, a Peerage, and a 
Prayer-Book. There was another square Pembroke 
table dedicated to the Fine Arts, on which were a 
kaleidoscope, conversation-cards, puzzle-cards (tied 
together to an interminable length with faded pink 
satin ribbon) , and a box painted in fond imitation of 
the drawings which decorate tea-chests. Carlo lay 
on the worsted-worked rug, and ungraciously barked 
at us as we entered. Mrs. Jamieson stood up, giving 
us each a torpid smile of welcome, and looking help- 
lessly beyond us at Mr. Mulliner, as if she hoped he 


136 


CRANFORD 


would place us in chairs, for, if he did not, she never 
could. I suppose he thought we could find our way 
to the circle round the fire, which reminded me of 
Stonehenge, I don’t know why. Lady Glenmire came 
to the rescue of our hostess, and, somehow or other, 
we found ourselves for the first time placed agreeably, 
and not formally, in Mrs. Jamieson’s house. Lady 
Glenmire, now we had time to look at her, proved to 
be a bright little woman of middle age, who had been 
very pretty in the days of her youth, and who was 
even yet very pleasant-looking. I saw Miss Pole 
appraising her dress in the first five minutes, and I 
take her word when she said the next day — 

“ My dear ! ten pounds would have purchased 
every stitch she had on — lace and all.” 

It was pleasant to suspect that a peeress could be 
poor, and partly reconciled us to the fact that her 
husband had never sat in the House of Lords ; which, 
when we first heard of it, seemed a kind of swindling 
us out of our respect on false pretences ; a sort of “ A 
Lord and No Lord” business. 

We were all very silent at first. We were thinking 
what we could talk about, that should be high enough 
to interest My Lady. There had been a rise in the 
price of sugar, which, as preserving-time was near, 
was a piece of intelligence to all our housekeeping 
hearts, and would have been the natural topic if Lady 
Glenmire had not been by. But we were not sure if 
the peerage ate preserves — much less knew how they 
were made. At last, Miss Pole, who had always a 
great deal of courage and savoir faire , spoke to 
Lady Glenmire, who on her part had seemed just 


YOUR LADYSHIP 


137 


as much puzzled to know how to break the silence as 
we were. 

“Has your ladyship been to Court lately? ” asked 
she ; and then gave a little glance round at us, half 
timid and half triumphant, as much as to say, “ See 
how judiciously I have chosen a subject befitting the 
rank of the stranger.” 

“ I never was there in my life,” said Lady Glenmire, 
with a broad Scotch accent, but in a very sweet voice. 
And then, as if she had been too abrupt, she added : 
“We very seldom went to London — only twice, in 
fact, during all my married life ; and before I was 
married my father had far too large a family ” (fifth 
daughter of Mr. Campbell was in all our minds, I am 
sure) “ to take us often from our home, even to Edin- 
burgh. Ye’ll have been in Edinburgh, maybe?” 
said she, suddenly brightening up with the hope of a 
common interest. We had none of us been there; 
but Miss Pole had an uncle who once had passed a 
night there, which was very pleasant. 

Mrs. Jamieson, meanwhile, was absorbed in wonder 
why Mr. Mulliner did not bring the tea ; and at length 
the wonder oozed out of her mouth. 

“ I had better ring the bell, my dear, had not I ? ” 
said Lady Glenmire briskly. 

“No — I think not — Mulliner does not like to be 
hurried.” 

We should have liked our tea, for we dined at an 
earlier hour than Mrs. Jamieson. I suspect Mr. Mil- 
liner had to finish the St. James's Chronicle before 
he chose to trouble himself about tea. His mistress 
fidgeted and fidgeted, and kept saying, “ I can’t think 


138 


CRANFORD 


why Mulliner does not bring tea. I can’t think what 
he can be about.” And Lady Glenmire at last grew 
quite impatient, but it was a pretty kind of impatience 
after all ; and she rang the bell rather sharply, on re- 
ceiving a half-permission from her sister-in-law to do 
so. Mr. Mulliner appeared in dignified surprise. 
“ Oh ! ” said Mrs. Jamieson, “ Lady Glenmire rang the 
bell ; I believe it was for tea.” 

In a few minutes tea was brought. Very delicate 
was the china, very old the plate, very thin the bread 
and butter, and very small the lumps of sugar. Sugar 
was evidently Mrs. Jamieson’s favourite economy. I 
question if the little filigree sugar-tongs, made some- 
thing like scissors, could have opened themselves wide 
enough to take up an honest, vulgar, good-sized piece ; 
and when I tried to seize two little minnikin pieces at 
once, so as not to be detected in too many returns to 
the sugar-basin, they absolutely dropped one, with a 
little sharp clatter, quite in a malicious and unnatural 
manner. But before this happened, we had had a slight 
disappointment. In the little silver jug was cream, 
in the larger one was milk. As soon as Mr. Mulliner 
came in, Carlo began to beg, which was a thing our 
manners forbade us to do, though I am sure we were 
just as hungry; and Mrs. Jamieson said she was cer- 
tain we would excuse her if she gave her poor dumb 
Carlo his tea first. She accordingly mixed a saucer- 
ful for him, and put it down for him to lap ; and then 
she told us how intelligent and sensible the dear little 
fellow was ; he knew cream quite well, and constantly 
refused tea with only milk in it ; so the milk was left 
for us ; but we silently thought we were quite as in- 


“YOUR LADYSHIP 


139 



telligent and sensible as Carlo, and felt as if insult 
were added to injury when we were called upon to 
admire the gratitude evinced by his wagging his tail 
for the cream which should have been ours. 


140 


CRANFORD 


After tea we thawed down into common life-sub- 
jects. We were thankful to Lady Glenmire for having 
proposed some more bread and butter, and this mu- 
tual want made us better acquainted with her than 
we should ever have been with talking about the 
Court, though ,Miss Pole did say she had hoped to 
know how the dear Queen was from some one who 
had seen her. 

The friendship begun over bread and butter ex- 
tended on to cards. Lady Glenmire played Prefer- 
ence to admiration, and was a complete authority as 
to Ombre and Quadrille. Even Miss Pole quite for- 
got to say “ my lady,” and “ your ladyship,” and said 
u Basto ! ma’am ” ; “ you have Spadille, I believe,” 
just as quietly as if we had never held the great Cran- 
ford parliament on the subject of the proper mode of 
addressing a peeress. 

As a proof of how thoroughly we had forgotten . 
that we were in the presence of one who might have 
sat down to tea with a coronet instead of a cap on 
her head, Mrs. Forrester related a curious little fact 
to Lady Glenmire — an anecdote known to the 
circle of her intimate friends, but of which even Mrs. 
Jamieson was not aware. It, related to some fine 
old lace, the sole relic of better days, which Lady 
Glenmire was admiring on Mrs. Forrester’s collar. 

“Yes,” said that lady, “ such lace cannot be got 
now for either love or money ; made by the nuns 
abroad, they tell me. They say that they can’t 
make it now, even there. But perhaps they can now 
they’ve passed the Catholic Emancipation Bill. I 
should not wonder. But, in the meantime, I treas- 


“YOUR LADYSHIP 


141 


ure up my lace very much. I daren’t even trust the 
washing of it to my maid ” (the little charity school- 
girl I have named before, but who sounded well as 
“ my maid ”) . u I always wash it myself. And once 
it had a narrow escape. Of course, your ladyship 
knows that such lace must never be starched or 
ironed. Some people wash it in sugar and water, 
and some in coffee, to make it the right yellow colour ; 
but I myself have a very good receipt for washing it 
in milk, which stiffens it enough, and gives it a very 
good creamy colour. Well, ma’am, I had tacked it 
together (and the beauty of this fine lace is that, 
when it is wet, it goes into a very little space), and 
put it to soak in milk, when, unfortunately, I left the 
room ; on my return I found pussy on the table, look- 
ing very like a thief, but gulping very uncomfortably, 
as if she was half-choked with something she wanted 
to swallow and could not. And, would you believe 
it ? At first I pitied her, and said ‘ Poor pussy ! poor 
pussy ! ’ till, all at once, I looked and saw the cup of 
milk empty — cleaned out ! ‘You naughty cat ! ’ said 
I ; and I believe I was provoked enough to give her 
a slap, which did no good, but only helped the lace 
down— just as one slaps a choking child on the back. 
I could have cried, I was so vexed ; but I determined 
I would not give the lace up without a struggle for 
it. I hoped the lace might disagree with her, at any 
rate ; but it would have been too much for Job, if he 
had seen, as I did, that cat come in, quite placid and 
purring, not a quarter of an hour after, and almost 
expecting to be stroked. ‘ No, pussy ! 1 said I, ‘ if 
you have any conscience you ought not to expect 


142 


CRANFORD 


that ! 1 And then a thought struck me ; and I rang 
the bell for my maid, and sent her to Mr. Hoggins, 
with my compliments, and would he be kind enough 
to lend me one of his top-boots for an hour? I did 
not think there was anything odd in the message ; 
but Jenny said the young men in the surgery laughed 
as if they would be ill at my wanting a top-boot. 
When it came, Jenny and I put pussy in, with her 
fore-feet straight down, so that they were fastened, 
and could not scratch, and we gave her a teaspoonful 
of currant-jelly in which (your ladyship must excuse 
me) I had mixed some tartar emetic. I shall never 
forget how anxious I was for the next half-hour. I 
took pussy to my own room, and spread a clean 
towel on the floor. I could have kissed her when she 
returned the lace to sight, very much as it had gone 
down. Jenny had boiling water ready, and we 
soaked it and soaked it, and spread it on a lavender- 
bush in the sun before I could touch it again, even 
to put it in milk. But now your ladyship would 
never guess that it had been in pussy’s inside.” 

We found out, in the course of the evening, that 
Lady Glenmire was going to pay Mrs. Jamieson a 
long visit, as she had given up her apartments in 
Edinburgh, and had no ties to take her back there in 
a hurry. On the whole, we were rather glad to hear 
this, for she had made a pleasant impression upon 
us ; and it was also very comfortable to find, from 
things which dropped out in the course of conver- 
sation, that, in addition to many other genteel quali- 
ties, she was far removed from the “ vulgarity of 
wealth.” . 


YOUR LADYSHIP 


143 


“ Don’t you find it very unpleasant walking ? ” 
asked Mrs. Jamieson, as our respective servants were 
announced. It was a pretty regular question from 
Mrs. Jamieson, who had her own carriage in the 
coach-house, and always went out in a sedan-chair to 
the very shortest distances. The answers were 
nearly as much a matter of course. 

“ Oh dear, no ! it is so pleasant and still at night ! ” 
“ Such a refreshment after the excitement of a party! ” 
“ The stars are so beautiful ! ” This last was from 
Miss Matty. 

“ Are you fond of astronomy ? ” Lady Glenmire 
asked. 

“Not very,” replied Miss Matty, rather confused 
at the moment to remember which was astronomy 
and which was astrology — but the answer was true 
under either circumstance, for she read, and was 
slightly alarmed at Francis Moore’s astrological pre- 
dictions ; and, as to astronomy, in a private and con- 
fidential conversation, she had told me she never 
could believe that the earth was moving constantly, 
and that she would not believe it if she could, it 
made her feel so tired and dizzy whenever she thought 
about it. 

In our pattens we picked our way home with extra 
care that night, so refined and delicate were our per- 
ceptions after drinking tea with “ my lady.” 



Ov afiter JX. 


Soon after the events of which I gave an account 
in my last paper, I was summoned home by my 
father’s illness ; and for a time I forgot, in anxiety 
about him, to wonder how my dear friends at Cran- 
ford were getting on, or how Lady Glenmire could 
reconcile herself to the dulness of the long visit 
which she was still paying to her sister-in-law, Mrs. 
Jamieson. When my father grew a little stronger I 
accompanied him to the seaside, so that altogether 
I seemed banished from Cranford, and was deprived 
of the opportunity of hearing any chance intelligence 
of the dear little town for the greater part of that 
year. 

Late in November — when we had returned home 
again, and my father was once more in good health 
— I received a letter from Miss Matty ; and a very 
mysterious letter it was. She began many sentences 
without ending them, running them one into another, 
in much the same confused sort of way in which 
144 


SIGNOR B RUN ONI 


145 


written words mn together on blotting-paper. All I 
could make out was that, if my father was better 
(which she hoped he was), and would take warning 
and wear a greatcoat from Michaelmas to Lady-day, 
if turbans were in fashion, could I tell her? Such a 
piece of gaiety was going to happen as had not been 
seen or known of since Wombwell’s lions came, when 
one of them ate a little child’s arm ; and she was, 
perhaps, too old to care about dress, but a new cap 
she must have ; and, having heard that turbans were 
worn, and some of the county families likely to 
come, she would like to look tidy, if I would bring 
her a cap from the milliner I employed ; and oh, 
dear ! how careless of her to forget that she wrote 
to beg I would come and pay her a visit next Tues- 
day ; when she hoped to have something to offer me 
in the way of amusement, which she would not now 
more particularly describe, only sea-green was her 
favourite colour. So she ended her letter ; but in a 
P. S. she added, she thought she might as well tell 
me what was the peculiar attraction to Cranford just 
now ; Signor Brunoni was going to exhibit his won- 
derful magic in the Cranford Assembly Rooms on 
Wednesday and Friday evening in the following 
week. 

I was very glad to accept the invitation from my 
dear Miss Matty, independently of the conjuror, and 
most particularly anxious to prevent her from dis- 
figuring her small, gentle, mousey face with a great 
Saracen’s head turban ; and, accordingly, I bought 
her a pretty, neat, middle-aged cap, which, however, 
was rather a disappointment to her, when, on my 


146 


CRANFORD 


arrival, she followed me into my bedroom, ostensibly 
to poke the fire, but in reality, I do believe, to see if 
the sea-green turban was not inside the cap-box with 
which I had travelled. It was in vain that I twirled 
the cap round on my hand to exhibit back and side- 
fronts : her heart had been set upon a turban, and all 
she could do was to say, with resignation in her look 
and voice — 

“ I am sure you did your best, my dear. It is just 
like the caps all the ladies in Cranford are wearing, 
and they have had theirs for a year, I daresay. I 
should have liked something newer, I confess — 
something more like the turbans Miss Betty Barker 
tells me Queen Adelaide wears ; but it is very pretty, 
my dear. And I daresay lavender will wear better 
than sea-green. Well, after all, what is dress, that 
we should care about it ! You’ll tell me if you want 
anything, my dear. Here, is the bell. I suppose 
turbans have not got down to Drumble yet ? ” 

So saying, the dear old lady gently bemoaned her- 
self out of the room, leaving me to dress for the 
evening, when, as she informed me, she expected 
Miss Pole and Mrs. Forrester, and she hoped I 
should not feel myself too much tired to join the 
party. Of course I should not ; and I made some 
haste to unpack and arrange my dress ; but, with all 
my speed, I heard the arrivals and the buzz of con- 
versation in the next room before I was ready. Just 
as I opened the door, I caught the words, “ I was 
foolish to expect anything very genteel out of the 
Drumble shops ; poor girl ! she did her best, I’ve no 
doubt.” But, for all that, I had rather that she 


SIGNOR B RUN ONI 


147 


blamed Drumble and me than disfigured herself 
with a turban. 

Miss Pole was always the person, in the trio of 
Cranford ladies now assembled, to have had adven- 
tures. She was in the habit of spending the morn- 
ing in rambling from shop to shop, not to" purchase 
anything (except an occasional reel of cotton, or a 
piece of tape), but to see the new articles and report 
upon them, and to collect all the stray pieces of intelli- 
gence in the town. She had a way, too, of demurely 
popping hither and thither into all sorts of places to 
gratify her curiosity on any point — a way which, if 
she had not looked so very genteel and prim, might 
have been considered impertinent. And now, by 
the expressive way in which she cleared her throat, 
and waited for all minor subjects (such as caps and 
turbans) to be cleared off the course, we knew she 
had something very particular to relate, when the 
due pause came — and I defy any people, possessed 
of common modesty, to keep up a conversation long, 
where one among them sits up aloft in silence, look- 
ing down upon all the things they chance to say as 
trivial and contemptible compared to what they could 
disclose, if properly entreated. Miss Pole began — 

“ As I was stepping out of Gordon’s shop to-day, 
I chanced to go into the 1 George ’ (my Betty has a 
second-cousin who is chambermaid there, and I 
thought Betty would like to hear how she was), and, 
not seeing any one about,' I strolled up the staircase, 
and found myself in the passage leading to the 
Assembly Room (you and I remember the Assembly 
Room, I am sure, Miss Matty ! and the minuets de 


148 


CRANFORD 


la cour !) ; so I went on, not thinking of what I was 
about, when, all at once, I perceived that I was in 
the middle of the preparations for to-morrow night — 
the room being divided with great clothes-maids, 
over which Crosby’s men were tacking red flannel ; 
very dark 1 ' and odd it seemed; it quite bewildered 
me, and I was going on behind the screens, in my 
absence of mind, when a gentleman (quite the gen- 
tleman, I can assure you) stepped forwards and asked 
if I had any business he could arrange for me. He 
spoke such pretty broken English, I could not help 
thinking of Thaddeus of Warsaw, and the Hungarian 
Brothers, and Santo Sebastiani ; and while I was 
busy picturing his past life to myself, he had bowed 
me out of the room. But wait a minute ! You have 
not heard half my story yet ! I was going down- 
stairs, when who should I meet but Betty’s second- 
cousin. So, of course, I stopped to speak to her for 
Betty’s sake ; and she told me that I had really seen 
the conjuror — the gentleman who spoke broken 
English was Signor Brunoni himself. Just at this 
moment he passed us on the stairs, making such a 
graceful bow ! in reply to which I dropped a curtsey 
— all foreigners have such polite manners, one catches 
something of it. But, when he had gone downstairs, 
I bethought me that if I had dropped my glove in 
the Assembly Room (it was safe in my muff all the 
time, but I never found it till afterwards) ; so I went 
back, and, just as I was creeping up the passage left 
on one side of the great screen that goes nearly 
across the room, who should I see but the very same 
gentleman that had met me before, and passed me 


SIGNOR B RUN ONI 


149 


Making such a graceful bow!' 



on the stairs, coming now forwards from the inner 
part of the room, to which there is no entrance — 
you remember, Miss Matty — and just repeating, in 
his pretty broken English, the inquiry if I had any 
business there — I don’t mean that he put it quite so 
bluntly, but he seemed very determined that I should 


150 


CRANFORD 


not pass the screen — so, of course, I explained 
about my glove, which, curiously enough, I found at 
that very moment . 11 

Miss Pole, then, had seen the conjuror — the real, 
live conjuror! and numerous were the questions we 
all asked her. “Had he. a beard ? 11 “Was he 
young, or old ? 11 “ Fair, or dark ? 11 “Did he look 11 

— ( unable to shape my question prudently, I put it 
in another form ) — “ How did he look ? 11 In short, 
Miss Pole was the heroine of the evening, owing to 
her morning’s encounter. If she was not the rose 
( that is to say, the conjuror), she had been near it. 

Conjuration, sleight of hand, magic, witchcraft, 
were the subjects of the evening. Miss Pole was 
slightly sceptical, and inclined to think there might 
be a scientific solution found for even the proceedings 
of the Witch of Endor. Mrs. Forrester believed 
everything, from ghosts to death-watches. Miss 
Matty ranged between the two — always convinced 
by the last speaker. I think she was naturally more 
inclined to Mrs. Forrester’s side, but a desire of prov- 
ing herself a worthy sister to Miss Jenkyns kept her 
equally balanced — Miss Jenkyns, who would never 
allow a servant to call the little rolls of tallow that 
formed themselves round candles “ winding-sheets/’ 
but insisted on their being spoken of as “ roley- 
poleys ! 11 A sister of hers to be superstitious! It 
would never do. 

After tea, I was despatched downstairs into the 
dining-parlour for that volume of the old Encyclo- 
paedia which contained the nouns beginning with C, 
in order that Miss Pole might prime herself with 


SIGNOR B RUN ONI 


151 


scientific explanations for the tricks of the following 
evening. It spoilt the pool at Preference which Miss 
Matty and Mrs. Forrester had been looking forward 
to, for Miss Pole became so much absorbed in her 
subject, and the plates by which it was illustrated, 
that we felt it would be cruel to disturb her 
otherwise than by one or two well-timed yawns, which 
I threw in now and then, for I was really touched by 
the meek way in which the two ladies were bearing 
their disappointment. But Miss Pole only read the 
more zealously, imparting to us no more interesting 
information than this — 

‘ ( Ah! I see; I comprehend perfectly. A repre- 
sents the ball. Put A between B and D — no! 
between C and F, and turn the second joint of the 
third finger of your left hand over the wrist of your 
right H. Very clear indeed! My dear Mrs. For- 
rester, conjuring and witchcraft is a mere affair of the 
alphabet. Do let me read you this one passage? 11 

Mrs. Forrester implored Miss Pole to spare her, 
saying, from a child upwards, she never could under- 
stand being read aloud to ; and I dropped the pack 
of cards, which I had been shuffling, very audibly, and 
by this discreet movement I obliged Miss Pole to 
perceive that Preference was to have been the order 
of the evening, and to propose, rather unwillingly, 
that the pool should commence. The pleasant 
brightness that stole over the other two ladies 1 faces 
on this! Miss Matty had one or two twinges of self- 
reproach for having interrupted Miss Pole in her 
studies : and did not remember her cards well, or 
give her full attention to the game, until she had 


152 


CRANFORD 


soothed her conscience by offering to lend the volume 
of the Encyclopaedia to Miss Pole, who accepted it 
thankfully, and said Betty should take it home when 
she came with the lantern. 

The next evening we were all in a little gentle 
flutter at the idea of the gaiety before us. Miss 
Matty went up to dress betimes, and hurried me until 
I was ready, when we found we had an hour and a 
half to wait before the “ doors opened at seven pre- 
cisely.” And we had only twenty yards to go ! 
However, as Miss Matty said, it would not do to get 
too much absorbed in anything and forget the time ; 
so she thought we had better sit quietly, without 
lighting the candles, till five minutes to seven. So 
Miss Matty dozed, and I knitted. 

At length we set off ; and at the door, under the 
carriage-way at the “ George,” we met Mrs. Forrester 
and Miss Pole : the latter was discussing the subject 
of the evening with more vehemence than ever, and 
throwing A’s and B’s at our heads like hailstones. 
She had even copied one or two of the “ receipts ” — 
as she called them — for the different tricks, on backs 
of letters, ready to explain and to detect Signor Bru- 
noni’s arts. 

We went into the cloak-room adjoining the Assem- 
bly Room ; Miss Matty gave a sigh or two to her de- 
parted youth, and the remembrance of the last time 
she had been there, as she adjusted her pretty new 
cap before the strange, quaint old mirror in the cloak- 
room. The Assembly Room had been added to the 
inn, about a hundred years before, by the different 
county families, who met together there once a month 


SIGNOR B RUN ONI 


153 


during the winter to dance and play at cards. Many 
a county beauty had first swum through the minuet that 
she afterwards danced before Queen Charlotte in this 
very room. It was said that one of the Gunnings had 
graced the apartment with her beauty ; it was certain 
that a rich and beautiful widow, Lady Williams, had 
here been smitten with the noble figure of a young 
artist, who was staying with some family in the neigh- 
bourhood for professional purposes, and accompanied 
his patrons to the Cranford Assembly. And a pretty 
bargain poor Lady Williams had of her handsome 
husband, if all tales were true. Now, no beauty 
blushed and dimpled along the sides of the Cranford 
Assembly Room ; no handsome artist won hearts by 
his bow, chapeau bras in hand ; the old room was 
dingy ; the salmon-coloured paint had faded into a 
drab ; great pieces of plaster had chipped off from 
the white wreaths and festoons on its walls ; but still 
a mouldy odour of aristocracy lingered about the 
place, and a dusty recollection of the days that were 
gone made Miss Matty and Mrs. Forrester bridle up 
as they entered, and walk mincingly up the room, as 
if there were a number of genteel observers, instead of 
two little boys with a stick of toffy between them with 
which to beguile the time. 

We stopped short at the second front row ; I could 
hardly understand why, until I heard Miss Pole ask a 
stray waiter if any of the county families were ex- 
pected ; and when he shook his head, and believed 
not, Mrs. Forrester and Miss Matty moved forwards, 
and our party represented a conversational square. 
The front row was soon augmented and enriched by 


154 


CRANFORD 


Lady Glenmire and Mrs. Jamieson. We six occupied 
the two front rows, and our aristocratic seclusion was 
respected by the groups of shopkeepers who strayed 
in from time to time and huddled together on the back 
benches. At least I conjectured so, from the noise 
they made, and the sonorous bumps they gave in sit- 
ting down ; but when, in weariness of the obstinate 
green curtain that would not draw up, but would stare 
at me with two odd eyes, seen through holes, as in the 
old tapestry story, I would fain have looked round at the 
merry chattering people behind me, Miss Pole clutched 
my arm, and begged me not to turn, for “ it was not 
the thing.” What “ the thing ” was, I never could 
find out, but it must have been something eminently 
dull and tiresome. However, we all sat eyes right, 
square front, gazing at the tantalising curtain, and 
hardly speaking intelligibly, we were so afraid of being 
caught in the vulgarity of making any noise in a place 
of public amusement. Mrs. Jamieson was the most 
fortunate, for she fell asleep. 

At length the eyes disappeared — the curtain quiv- 
ered — one side went up before the other, which stuck 
fast ; it was dropped again, and, with a fresh effort, 
and a vigorous pull from some unseen hand, it flew 
up, revealing to our sight a magnificent gentleman in 
the Turkish costume, seated before a little table, gaz- 
ing at us ; (I should have said with the same eyes that 
I had last seen through the hole in the curtain) with 
calm and condescending dignity, “ like a being of an- 
other sphere,” as I heard a sentimental voice ejacu- 
late behind me. 

“ That’s not Signor Brunoni ! ” said Miss Pole de- 


SIGNOR B RUN ONI 


155 


cidedly ; and so audibly that I am sure he heard, for 
he glanced down over his flowing beard at our party 
with an air of mute reproach. “ Signor Brunoni had 
no beard — but perhaps he’ll come soon.” So she 
lulled herself into patience. Meanwhile, Miss Matty 
had reconnoitred through her eye-glass, wiped it, and 
looked again. Then she turned round, and said to 
me, in a kind, mild, sorrowful tone — 

“You see, my dear, turbans are worn.” 

But we had no time for more conversation. The 
Grand Turk, as Miss Pole chose to call him, arose and 
announced himself as Signor Brunoni. 

“ I don’t believe him ! ” exclaimed Miss Pole, in a 
defiant manner. He looked at her again, with the 
same dignified upbraiding in his countenance. “ 1 
don’t ! ” she repeated more positively than ever. 
“ Signor Brunoni had not got that muffy sort of thing 
about his chin, but looked like a close-shaved Chris- 
tian gentleman.” 

Miss Pole’s energetic speeches had the good effect 
of wakening up Mrs. Jamieson, who opened her eyes 
wide, in sign of the deepest attention — a proceeding 
which silenced Miss Pole and encouraged the Grand 
Turk to proceed, which he did in very broken English 
— so broken that there was no cohesion between the 
parts of his sentences ; a fact which he himself per- 
ceived at last, and so left off speaking and proceeded 
to action. 

Now we were astonished. How he did his tricks I 
could not imagine ; no, not even when Miss Pole pulled 
out her pieces of paper and began reading aloud — or 
at least in a very audible whisper — the separate 


156 


CRANFORD 


u receipts ” for the most common of his tricks. If 
ever I saw a man frown and look enraged, I saw the 
Grand Turk frown at Miss Pole ; but, as she said, 
what could be expected but unchristian looks from a 
Mussulman ? If Miss Pole were sceptical, and more 
engrossed with her receipts and diagrams than with 
his tricks, Miss Matty and Mrs. Forrester were mysti- 
fied and perplexed to the highest degree. Mrs. Jamie- 
son kept taking her spectacles off and wiping them, as 
if she thought it was something defective in them 
which made the legerdemain ; and Lady Glenmire, 
who had seen many curious sights in Edinburgh, was 
very much struck with the tricks, and would not at all 
agree with Miss Pole, who declared that anybody 
could do them with a little practice, and that she would, 
herself, undertake to do all he did, with two hours 
given to study the Encyclopaedia and make her third 
finger flexible. 

At last Miss Matty and Mrs. Forrester became per- 
fectly awe-stricken. They whispered together. I sat 
just behind them, so I could not help hearing what 
they were saying. Miss Matty asked Mrs. Forrester 
“ if she thought it was quite right to have come to 
see such things ? She could not help fearing they 
were lending encouragement to something that was 

not quite ” A little shake of the head filled up 

the blank. Mrs. Forrester replied that the same 
thought had crossed her mind ; she, too, was feeling 
very uncomfortable, it was so very strange. She was 
quite certain that it was her pocket-handkerchief 
which was in that loaf just now ; and it had been in 
her own hand not five minutes before. She won- 


SIGNOR B RUN ONI 


157 


dered who had furnished the bread? She was sure 
it could not be Dakin, because he was the church- 
warden. Suddenly Miss Matty half-turned towards 
me — 

“Will you look, my dear — you are a stranger in 
the town, and it won’t give rise to unpleasant reports 



— will you just look round and see if the rector is 
here? If he is, I think we may conclude that this 
wonderful man is sanctioned by the Church, and that 
will be a great relief to my mind.” 

I looked, and I saw the tall, thin, dry, rusty rector, 
sitting surrounded by National School boys, guarded 
by troops of his own sex from any approach of the 


158 


CRANFORD 


many Cranford spinsters. His kind face was all 
agape with broad smiles, and the boys around him 
were in chinks of laughing. I told Miss Matty that 
the Church was smiling approval, which set her mind 
at ease. 

I have never named Mr. Hayter, the rector, because 
I, as a well-to-do and happy young woman, never 
came in contact with him. He was an old bachelor, 
but as afraid of matrimonial reports getting abroad 
about him as any girl of eighteen : and he would rush 
into a shop, or drive down an entry, sooner than en- 
counter any of the Cranford ladies in the street ; and, 
as for the Preference parties, I did not wonder at his 
not accepting invitations to them. To tell the truth, 
I always suspected Miss Pole of having given very 
vigorous chase to Mr. Hayter when he first came to 
Cranford ; and not the less, because now she appeared 
to share so vividly in his dread lest her name should 
ever be coupled with his. He found all his interests 
among the poor and helpless ; he had treated the 
National School boys this very night to the perform- 
ance ; and virtue was for once its own reward, for 
they guarded him right and left, and clung round 
him as if he had been the queen-bee and they the 
swarm. He felt so safe in their environment that he 
could even afford to give our party a bow as we filed 
out. Miss Pole ignored his presence, and pretended 
to be absorbed in convincing us that we had been 
cheated, and had not seen Signor Brunoni after all. 


CHAPTER X 



ink a series of circumstances dated from 
Signor Brunoni’s visit to Cranford, 
which seemed at the time connected 
in our minds with him, though I don’t 
know that he had anything really to 
do with them. All at once all sorts of uncomfortable 
rumours got afloat in the town. There were one or 
two robberies — real bond fide robberies ; men had up 
before the magistrates and committed for trial — and 
that seemed to make us all afraid of being robbed ; and 
for a long time, at Miss Matty’s, I know, we used to 
make a regular expedition all round the kitchens and 
cellars every night, Miss Matty leading the way, armed 
with the poker, I following with the hearth-brush, 
and Martha carrying the shovel and fire-irons with 
which to sound the alarm ; and by the accidental hit- 
ting together of them she often frightened us so much 
that we bolted ourselves up, all three together, in the 
back-kitchen, or store-room, or wherever we happened 
to be, till, when our affright was over, we recollected 
ourselves, and set out afresh with double valiance. 
By day we heard strange stories from the shopkeepers 


i59 


160 


CRANFORD 


and cottagers, of carts that went about in the dead of 
night, drawn by horses shod with felt, and guarded 
by men in dark clothes, going round the town, no 
doubt in search of some unwatched house or some 
unfastened door. 

Miss Pole, who affected great bravery herself, was 
the principal person to collect and arrange these re- 
ports so as to make them assume their most fearful 
aspect. But we discovered that she had begged one 
of Mr. Hoggins’s worn-out hats to hang up in her 
lobby, and we ( at least I ) had doubts as to whether 
she really would enjoy the little adventure of having 
her house broken into, as she protested she should. 
Miss Matty made no secret of being an arrant cow- 
ard, but she went regularly through her housekeeper’s 
duty of inspection — only the hour for this became 
earlier and earlier, till at last we went the rounds at 
half-past six, and Miss Matty adjourned to bed soon 
after seven, “ in order to get the night over the sooner.” 

Cranford had so long piqued itself on being an 
honest and moral town that it had grown to fancy it- 
self too genteel and well-bred to be otherwise, and 
felt the stain upon its character at this time doubly. 
But we comforted ourselves with the assurance which 
we gave to each other that the robberies could never 
have been committed by any Cranford person ; it 
must have been a stranger or strangers who brought 
this disgrace upon the town, and occasioned as many 
precautions as if we were living among the Red 
Indians or the French. 

This last comparison of our nightly state of defence 
and fortification was made by Mrs. Forrester, whose 


THE PANIC 


161 


father had served under General Burgoyne in the 
American war, and whose husband had fought the 
French in Spain. She indeed inclined to the idea 
that, in some way, the French were connected with 
the small thefts, which were ascertained facts, and 
the burglaries and highway robberies, which were 
rumours. She had been deeply impressed with the 
idea of French spies at some time in her life; and 
the notion could never be fairly eradicated, but 
sprang up again from time to time. And now her 
theory was this : The Cranford people respected 
themselves too much, and were too grateful to the 
aristocracy who were so kind as to live near the town, 
ever to disgrace their bringing up by being dishonest 
or immoral ; therefore, we must believe that the rob- 
bers were strangers — if strangers, why not foreigners ? 
— if foreigners, who so likely as the French ? Signor 
Brunoni spoke broken English like a Frenchman; 
and, though he wore a turban like a Turk, Mrs. For- 
rester had seen a print of Madame de Stael with a 
turban on, and another of Mr. Denon in just such a 
dress as that in which the conjuror had made his 
appearance, showing clearly that the French, as well 
as the Turks, wore turbans. There could be no doubt 
Signor Brunoni was a Frenchman — a French spy 
come to discover the weak and undefended places of 
England, and doubtless he had his accomplices. 
For her part, she, Mrs. Forrester, had always had 
her own opinion of Miss Pole’s adventure at the 
“George Inn” — seeing two men where only one 
was believed to be. French people had ways and 
means which, she was thankful to say, the English 


162 


CRANFORD 


knew nothing about ; and she had never felt quite 
easy in her mind about going to see that conjuror — 
it was rather too much like a forbidden thing, though 
the rector was there. In short, Mrs. Forrester grew 
more excited than we had ever known her before, and, 
being an officer’s daughter and widow, we looked up 
to her opinion, of course. 

Really I do not know how much was true or false 
in the reports which flew about like wildfire just at 
this time ; but it seemed to me then that there was 
every reason to believe that at Mardon (a small town 
about eight miles from Cranford) houses and shops 
were entered by holes made in the walls, the bricks 
being silently carried away in the dead of the night, 
and all done so quietly that no sound was heard either 
in or out of the house. Miss Matty gave it up in 
despair when she heard of this. “What was the 
use,” said she, “ of locks and bolts, and bells to the 
windows, and going round the house every night? 
That last trick was fit for a conjuror. Now she did 
believe that Signor Brunoni was at the bottom of it.” 

One afternoon, about five o’clock, we were startled 
by a hasty knock at the door. Miss Matty bade me 
run and tell Martha on no account to open the door 
till she (Miss Matty) had reconnoitred through the 
window ; and she armed herself with a footstool to 
drop down on the head of the visitor, in case he 
should show a face covered with black crape, as he 
looked up in answer to her inquiry of who was there. 
But it was nobody but Miss Pole and Betty. The 
former came upstairs, carrying a little hand-basket, 
and she was evidently in a state of great agitation. 


THE PANIC 


163 



“ Armed with a footstool 


« Take care of that ! ” said she to me, as I offered 
to relieve her of her basket. “ It’s my plate. I am 
sure there is a plan to rob my house to-night. I 
am come to throw myself on your hospitality, Miss 
Matty. Betty is going to sleep with her cousin at the 



164 


CRANFORD 


* George.’ I can sit up here all night if you. will al- 
low me ; but my house is so far from any neighbours, 
and I don’t believe we could be heard if we screamed 
ever so ! ” 

“ But,” said Miss Matty, “ what has alarmed you 
so much ? Have you seen any men lurking about the 
house ? ” 

“ Oh yes ! ” answered Miss Pole. “ Two very bad- 
looking men have gone three times past the house, 
very slowly ; and an Irish beggar-woman came not 
half-an-hour ago, and all but forced herself in past 
Betty, saying her children were starving, and she 
must speak to the mistress. You see, she said ‘mis- 
tress,’ though there was a hat hanging up in the hall, 
and it would have been more natural to have said 
‘ master.’ But Betty shut the door in her face, and 
came up to me, and we got the spoons together, and 
sat in the parlour-window watching till we saw 
Thomas Jones going from his work, when we called 
to him and asked him to take care of us into the 
town.” 

We might have triumphed over Miss Pole, who 
had professed such bravery until she was frightened ; 
but we were too glad to perceive that she shared in 
the weakness of humanity to exult over her ; and I 
gave up my room to her very willingly, and shared 
Miss Matty’s bed for the night. But before we re- 
tired, the two ladies rummaged up, out of the recesses 
of their memory, such horrid stories of robbery and 
murder that I quite quaked in my shoes. Miss Pole 
was evidently anxious to prove that such terrible 
events had occurred within her experience that she 


THE PANIC 


165 


was justified in her sudden panic ; and Miss Matty 
did not like to be outdone, and capped every story 
with one yet more horrible, till it reminded me, oddly 
enough, 'of an old story I had read somewhere, of a 
nightingale and a musician, who strove one against 
the other which could produce the most admirable 
music, till poor Philomel dropped down dead. 

One of the stories that haunted me for a long time 
afterwards was of a girl who was left in charge of a 
great house in Cumberland on some particular fair- 
day, when the other servants all went off to the 
gaieties. The family were away in London, and a 
pedlar came by, and asked to leave his large and 
heavy pack in the kitchen, saying he would call for it 
again at night ; and the girl (a gamekeeper’s daugh- 
ter), roaming about in search of amusement, chanced 
to hit upon a gun hanging up in the hall, and took 
it down to look at the chasing; and it went off 
through the open kitchen door, hit the pack, and a 
slow dark thread of blood came oozing out. (How 
Miss Pole enjoyed this part of the story, dwelling on 
each word as if she loved it !) She rather hurried 
over the further account of the girl’s bravery, and I 
have but a confused idea that, somehow, she baffled 
the robbers with Italian irons, heated red-hot, and 
then restored to blackness by being dipped in 
grease. 

We parted for the night with an awe-stricken won- 
der as to what we should hear of in the morning — 
and, on my part, with a vehement desire for the night 
to be over and gone : I was so afraid lest the robbers 
should have seen, from some dark lurking-place, that 


166 


CRANFORD 


Miss Pole had carried off her plate, and thus have a 
double motive for attacking our house. 

But until Lady Glenmire came to call next day we 
heard of nothing unusual. The kitchen fire-irons 
were in exactly the same position against the back 
door as when Martha and I had skilfully piled them 
up, like spillikins, ready to fall with an awful clatter if 
only a cat had touched the outside panels. I had 
wondered what we should all do if thus awakened and 
alarmed, and had proposed to Miss Matty that we 
should cover up our faces under the bed-clothes, so 
that there should be no danger of the robbers think- 
ing that we could identify them ; but Miss Matty, 
who was trembling very much, scouted this idea, and 
said we owed it to society to apprehend them, and 
that she should certainly do her best to lay hold of 
them and lock them up in the garret till morning. 

When Lady Glenmire came, we almost felt jealous 
of her. Mrs. Jamieson’s house had really been 
attacked ; at least there were men’s footsteps to be 
seen on the flower borders, underneath the kitchen 
windows, “ where nae men should be ; ” and Carlo 
had barked all through the night as if strangers were 
abroad. Mrs. Jamieson had been awakened by Lady 
Glenmire, and they had rung the bell which commu- 
nicated with Mr. Mulliner’s room in the third story, 
and when his nightcapped head had appeared over 
the banisters, in answer to their summons, they had 
told him of their alarm, and the reasons for it ; where- 
upon he retreated into his bedroom, and locked the 
door (for fear of draughts, as he informed them in 
the morning), and opened the window, and called 


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167 


out valiantly to say, if the supposed robbers would 
come to him he would fight them ; but, as Lady 
Glenmire observed, that was but poor comfort, since 
they would have to pass by Mrs. Jamieson’s room and 



“ Called out valiantly." 


her own before they could reach him, and must be of 
a very pugnacious disposition indeed if they neglected 
the opportunities of robbery presented by the un- 
guarded lower stories, to go up to a garret, and there 
force a door in order to get at the champion of the 



168 


CRANFORD 


house. Lady Glenmire, after waiting and listening 
for some time in the drawing-room, had proposed to 
Mrs. Jamieson that they should go to bed ; but that 
lady said she should not feel comfortable unless she 
sat up and watched ; and, accordingly, she packed 
herself warmly up on the sofa, where she was found by 
the housemaid, when she came into the room at six 
o’clock, fast asleep ; but Lady Glenmire went to bed, 
and kept awake all night. 

When Miss Pole heard of this, she nodded her 
head in great satisfaction. She had been sure we 
should hear of something happening in Cranford that 
night; and we had heard. It was clear enough they 
had first proposed to attack her house ; but when they 
saw that she and Betty were on their guard, and had 
carried off the plate, they had changed their tactics 
and gone to Mrs. Jamieson’s and no one knew what 
might have happened if Carlo had not barked, like a 
good dog as he was ! 

Poor Carlo ! his barking days were nearly over. 
Whether the gang who infested the neighbourhood 
were afraid of him, or whether they were revengeful 
enough, for the way in which he had baffled them on 
the night in question, to poison him ; or whether, as 
some among the more uneducated people thought, he 
died of apoplexy; brought on by too much feeding and 
too little exercise ; at any rate, it is certain that, two 
days after this eventful night, Carlo was found dead, 
with his poor little legs stretched out stiff in the atti- 
tude of running, as if by such unusual exertion he 
could escape the sure pursuer, Death. 

We were all sorry for Carlo, the old familiar friend 


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169 


who had snapped at us for so many years ; and the 
mysterious mode of his death made us very uncom- 
fortable. Could Signor Brunoni be at the bottom of 
this? He had apparently killed a canary with only a 
word of command ; his will seemed of deadly force ; 
who knew but what he might yet be lingering in the 
neighbourhood willing all sorts of awful things! 

We whispered these fancies among ourselves in the 
evenings ; but in the mornings our courage came back 
with the daylight, and in a week’s time we had got 
over the shock of Carlo’s death; all but Mrs. Jamie- 
son. She, poor thing, felt it as she had felt no event 
since her husband’s death ; indeed Miss Pole said, 
that, as the Honourable Mr. Jamieson drank a good 
deal, and occasioned her much uneasiness, it was pos- 
sible that Carlo’s death might be the greater affliction. 
But there was always a tinge of cynicism in Miss 
Pole’s remarks. However, one thing was clear and 
certain — it was necessary for Mrs. Jamieson to have 
some change of. scene ; and Mr. Mulliner was very 
impressive on this point, shaking his head whenever 
we inquired after his mistress, and speaking of her 
loss of appetite and bad nights very ominously ; and 
with justice too, for if she had two characteristics in 
her natural state of health they were a facility of eat- 
ing and sleeping. If she could neither eat nor sleep, 
she must be indeed out of spirits and out of health. 

Lady Glenmire (who had evidently taken very 
kindly to Cranford) did not like the idea of Mrs. 
Jamieson’s going to Cheltenham, and more than once 
insinuated pretty plainly that it was Mr. Mulliner’s 
doing, who had been much alarmed on the occasion 


170 


CRANFORD 


of the house being attacked, and since had said, more 
than once, that he felt it a very responsible charge to 
have to defend so many women. Be that as it 
might, Mrs. Jamieson went to Cheltenham, escorted 
by Mr. Mulliner; and Lady Glenmire remained in 
possession of the house, her ostensible office being to 
take care that the maid-servants did not pick up fol- 
lowers. She made a very pleasant-looking dragon ; 
and, as soon as it was arranged for her stay in Cran- 
ford, she found out that Mrs. Jamieson’s visit to Chel- 
tenham was just the best thing in the world. She 
had let her house in Edinburgh, and was for the 
time houseless, so the charge of her sister-in-law’s 
comfortable abode was very convenient and accept- 
able. 

Miss Pole was very much inclined to instal herself 
as a heroine, because of the decided steps she had 
taken in flying from the two men and one woman, 
whom she entitled “ that murderous gang.” She de- 
scribed their appearance in glowing colours, and I 
noticed that every time she went over the story some 
fresh trait of villany was added to their appearance. 
One was tall — he grew to be gigantic in height before 
we had done with him ; he of course had black hair — 
and by and by it hung in elf-locks over his forehead 
and down his back. The other was short and broad 
— and a hump sprouted out on his shoulder before we 
heard the last of him ; he had red hair — which deep- 
ened into carroty ; and she was almost sure he had a 
cast in the eye — a decided squint. As for the woman, 
her eyes glared, and she was masculine looking — 
a perfect virago; most probably a man dressed in, 


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171 


woman’s clothes : afterwards, we heard of a beard on 
her chin, and a manly voice and a stride. 

If Miss Pole was delighted to recount the events of 
that afternoon to all inquirers, others were not so proud 
of their adventures in the robbery line. Mr. Hog- 
gins, the surgeon, had been attacked at his own door by 
two ruffians, who were concealed in the shadow of the 
porch, and so effectually silenced him that he was 
robbed in the interval between ringing his bell and the 
servant’s answering it. Miss Pole was sure it would 
turn out that this robbery had been committed by 
“her men,” and went the very day she heard the 
report to have her teeth examined, and to question 
Mr. Hoggins. She came to us afterwards ; so we 
heard what she had heard, straight and direct from 
the source, while we were yet in the excitement and 
flutter of the agitation caused by the first intelligence ; 
for the event had only occurred the night before. 

“Well!” said Miss Pole, sitting down with the 
decision of a person who has made up her mind as to 
the nature of life and the world (and such people 
never tread lightly, or seat themselves without a 
bump), “well, Miss Matty! men will be men. Every 
mother’s son of them wishes to be considered Sam- 
son and Solomon rolled into one — too strong ever 
to be beaten or discomfited — too wise ever to be out- 
witted. If you will notice, they have always foreseen 
events, though they never tell one for one’s warning 
before the events happen. My father was a man, and 
I know the sex pretty well.” 

She had talked herself out of breath, and we should 
have been very glad to fill up the necessary pause as 


172 


CRANFORD 


chorus, but we did not exactly know what to say, or 
which man had suggested this diatribe against the 
sex ; so we only joined in generally, with a grave shake 
of the head, and a soft murmur of “ They are very 
incomprehensible, certainly ! ” 

“ Now, only think,” said she. “ There, I have 
undergone the risk of having one of my remaining 
teeth drawn (for one is terribly at the mercy of any 
surgeon-dentist ; and I, for one, always speak them 
fair till I have got my mouth out of their clutches), 
and, after all, Mr. Hoggins is too much of a man to 
own that he was robbed last night.” 

“Not robbed !” exclaimed the chorus. 

“ Don’t tell me ! ” Miss Pole exclaimed, angry that 
we could be fora moment imposed upon. “ I believe 
he was robbed, just as Betty told me, and he is 
ashamed to own it ; and, to be sure, it was very silly 
of him to be robbed just at his own door ; I dare- 
say he feels that such a thing won’t raise him in the 
eyes of Cranford society, and is anxious to conceal 
it — but he need not have tried to impose upon me 
by saying I must have heard an exaggerated account 
of some petty theft of a neck of mutton, which, it 
seems, was stolen out of the safe in his yard last 
week ; he had the impertinence to add, he believed 
that that was taken by the cat. I have no doubt, if 
I could get at the bottom of it, it was that Irishman 
dressed up in woman’s clothes, who came spying 
about my house, with the story about the starving 
children.” 

After we had duly condemned the want of candour 
which Mr. Hoggins had evinced, and abused men in 


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173 


general, taking him for the representative and type, 
we got round to the subject about which we had been 
talking when Miss Pole came in ; namely, how far, in 
the present disturbed state of the country, we could 
venture to accept an invitation which Miss Matty had 
just received from Mrs. Forrester, to come as usual 
and keep the anniversary of her wedding-day by 
drinking tea with her at five o’clock, and playing a 
quiet pool afterwards. Mrs. Forrester had said that 
she asked us with some diffidence, because the roads 
were, she feared, very unsafe. But she suggested 
that perhaps one of us would not object to take the 
sedan, and that the others, by walking briskly, might 
keep up with the long trot of the chairmen, and so 
we might all arrive safely at Over Place, a suburb of 
the town. (No ; that is too large an expression : a 
small cluster of houses separated from Cranford by 
about two hundred yards of a dark and lonely lane.) 
There was no doubt but that a similar note was await- 
ing Miss Pole at home ; so her call was a very fortu- 
nate affair, as it enabled us to consult together. . . . 
We would all much rather have declined this invita- 
tion ; but we felt that it would not be quite kind to 
Mrs. Forrester, who would otherwise be left to a soli- 
tary retrospect of her not very happy or fortunate life. 
Miss Matty and Miss Pole had been visitors on this 
occasion for many years, and now they gallantly de- 
termined to nail their colours to the mast, and to go 
through Darkness-lane rather than fail in loyalty to 
their friend. 

But when the evening came, Miss Matty (for it was 
she who was voted into the chair, as she had a cold), 


174 


CRANFORD 


before being shut down in the sedan, like jack-in-a- 
box, implored the chairman, whatever might befall, 
not to run away and leave her fastened up there, to 
be murdered ; and even after they had promised, I 
saw her tighten her features into the stern determina- 



tion of a martyr, and she gave me a melancholy and 
ominous shake of the head through the glass. How- 
ever, we got there safely, only rather out of breath, 
for it was who could trot hardest through Darkness- 
lane, and I am afraid poor Miss Matty was sadly 
jolted. 



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175 


Mrs. Forrester had made extra preparations, in 
acknowledgment of our exertion in coming to see 
her through such dangers. The usual forms of gen- 
teel ignorance as to what her servants might send up 
were all gone through ; and harmony and Preference 
seemed likely to be the order of the evening, but for 
an interesting conversation that began I don’t know 
how, but which had relation, of course, to the rob- 
bers who infested the neighbourhood of Cranford. 

Having braved the dangers of Darkness-lane, and 
thus having a little stock of reputation for courage to 
fall back upon ; and also, I daresay, desirous of prov- 
ing ourselves superior to men ( videlicet Mr. Hog- 
gins) in the article of candour, we began to relate 
our individual fears, and the private precautions we 
each of us took. I owned that my pet apprehension 
was eyes — eyes looking at me, and watching me, 
glittering out from some dull, flat, wooden surface ; 
and that if I dared to go up to my looking-glass when 
I was panic-stricken, I should certainly turn it round, 
with its back towards me, for fear of seeing eyes 
behind me looking out of the darkness. I saw Miss 
Matty nerving herself up for a confession ; and at 
last out it came. She owned that, ever since she had 
been a girl, she had dreaded being caught by her last 
leg, just as she was getting into bed, by some one 
concealed under it. She said, when she was younger 
and more active, she used to take a flying leap from 
a distance, and so bring both her legs up safely into 
bed at once ; but that this had always annoyed Deb- 
orah, who piqued herself upon getting into bed 
gracefully, and she had given it up in consequence. 


176 


CRANFORD 


But now the old terror would often come over her, 
especially since Miss Pole’s house had been attacked 
(we had got quite to believe in the fact of the attack 
having taken place), and yet it was very unpleasant 
to think of looking under a bed, and seeing a man 
concealed, with a great, fierce face staring out at you ; 
so she had bethought herself of something — perhaps 
I had noticed that she had told Martha to buy her a 
penny ball, such as children play with — and now she 
rolled this ball under the bed every night ; if it came 
out on the other side, well and good ; if not she 
always took care to have her hand on the bell-rope, 
and meant to call out John and Harry, just as if she 
expected men-servants to answer her ring. 

We all applauded this ingenious contrivance, and 
Miss Matty sank back into satisfied silence, with a 
look at Mrs. Forrester as if to ask for her private 
weakness. 

Mrs. Forrester looked askance at Miss Pole, and 
tried to change the subject a little by telling us that 
she had borrowed a boy from one of the neighbour- 
ing cottages and promised his parents a hundred- 
weight of coals at Christmas, and his supper every 
evening, for the loan of him at nights. She had 
instructed him in his possible duties when he first 
came ; and, finding him sensible, she had given him 
the Major’s sword (the Major was her late husband), 
and desired him to put it very carefully behind his 
pillow at night, turning the edge towards the head 
of the pillow. He was a sharp lad, she was sure ; 
for, spying out the Major’s cocked hat, he had said, 
if he might have that to wear, he was sure he could 


THE PANIC 


177 


frighten two Englishmen, or four Frenchmen, any 
day. But she had impressed upon him anew that he 
was to lose no time in putting on hats or anything 
else ; but, if he heard any noise, he was to run at it 



He was a sharp lad.” 


with his drawn sword. On my suggesting that some 
accident might occur from such slaughterous and in- 
discriminate directions, and that he might rush on 
Jenny getting up to wash, and have spitted her before 
he had discovered that she was not a Frenchman, 


178 


CRANFORD 


Mrs. Forrester said she did not think that that was 
likely, for he was a very sound sleeper, and generally 
had to be well shaken or cold-pigged in a morning 
before they could rouse him. She sometimes thought 
such dead sleep must be owing to the hearty suppers 
the poor lad ate, for he was half-starved at home, and 
she told Jenny to see that he got a good meal at 
night. 

Still this was no confession of Mrs. Forrester’s 
peculiar timidity, and we urged her to tell us what 
she thought would frighten her more than anything. 
She paused, and stirred the fire, and snuffed the 
candles, and then she said, in a sounding whisper — 

“ Ghosts ! ” 

She looked at Miss Pole, as much as to say she 
had declared it, and would stand by it. Such a look 
was a challenge in itself. Miss Pole came down upon 
her with indigestion, spectral illusions, optical delu- 
sions, and a great deal out of Dr. Ferrier and Dr. 
Hibbert besides. Miss Matty had' rather a leaning to 
ghosts, as I have mentioned before, and what little 
she did say was all on Mrs. Forrester’s side, who, 
emboldened by sympathy, protested that ghosts were 
a part of her religion ; that surely she, the widow of 
a Major in the army, knew what to be frightened at, 
and what not ; in short, I never saw Mrs. Forrester so 
warm either before or since, for she was a gentle, 
meek, enduring old lady in most things. Not all the 
elder-wine that ever was mulled could this night wash 
out the remembrance of this difference between Miss 
Pole and her hostess. Indeed, when the elder-wine 
was brought in, it gave rise to a new burst of discus- 


THE PANIC 


179 


sion ; for Jenny, the little maiden who staggered under 
the tray, had to give evidence of having seen a ghost 
with her own eyes, not so many nights ago, in Dark- 
ness-lane, the very lane we were to go through on our 
way home. 

In spite of the uncomfortable feeling which this last 
consideration gave me, I could not help being amused 
at Jenny’s position, which was exceedingly like that of 
a witness being examined and cross-examined by two 
counsel who are not at all scrupulous about asking 
leading questions. The conclusion I arrived at was, 
that Jenny had certainly seen something beyond what 
a fit of indigestion would have caused. A lady all in 
white, and without her head, was what she deposed 
and adhered to, supported by a consciousness of the 
secret sympathy of her mistress under the withering 
scorn with which Miss Pole regarded her. And not 
only she, but many others, had seen this headless 
lady, who sat by the roadside wringing her hands as 
in deep grief. Mrs. Forrester looked at us from time 
to time with an air of conscious triumph ; but then 
she had not to pass through Darkness-lane before she 
could bury herself beneath her own familiar bed- 
clothes. 

We preserved a discreet silence as to the headless 
lady while we were putting on our things to go home, 
for there was no knowing how near the ghostly head 
and ears might be, or what spiritual connection they 
might be keeping up with the unhappy body in 
Darkness-lane ; and, therefore, even Miss Pole felt 
that it was as well not to speak lightly on such sub- 
jects, for fear of vexing or insulting that woe-begone 


180 


CRANFORD 


trunk. At least, so I conjecture ; for, instead of the 
busy clatter usual in the operation, we tied on our 
cloaks as sadly as mutes at a funeral. Miss Matty 
drew the curtains round the windows of the chair to 
shut out disagreeable sights, and the men (either be- 
cause they were in spirits that their labours were so 
nearly ended, or because they were going down hill) 
set off at such a round and merry pace that it was all 
Miss Pole and I could do to keep up with them. She 
had breath for nothing beyond an imploring “ Don’t 
leave me ! ” uttered as she clutched my arm so tightly 
that I could not have quitted her, ghost or no ghost. 
What a relief it was when the men, weary of their 
burden and their quick trot, stopped just* where 
Headingley-causeway branches off from Darkness- 
lane ! Miss Pole unloosed me and caught at one 
of the men. 

“ Could not you — could not you take Miss Matty 
round by Headingley-causeway ? — the pavement 
in Darkness-lane jolts so, and she is not very 
strong.” 

A smothered voice was heard from the inside of 
the chair : 

“ Oh ! pray go on ! What is the matter ? What 
is the matter ? I will give you sixpence more to go 
on very fast ; pray don’t stop here.” 

“ And I’ll give you a shilling,” said Miss Pole, with 
tremulous dignity, “ if you’ll go by Headingley-cause- 
way.” 

The two men grunted acquiescence and took up the 
chair, and went along the causeway, which certainly 
answered Miss Pole’s kind purpose of saving Miss 


THE PANIC 


181 


Matty’s bones ; for it was covered with ' soft thick 
mud, and even a fall there would have been easy till 
the getting up came, when there might have been 
some difficulty in extrication. 



The next morning I met Lady Glenmire and Miss 
Pole setting out on a long walk to find some old 
woman who was famous in the neighbourhood for her 
skill in knitting woollen stockings. Miss Pole said to 
me, with a smile half-kindly and half-contemptuous 
upon her countenance, “ I have been just telling Lady 
Glenmire of our poor friend Mrs. Forrester, and her 
terror of ghosts. It comes from living so much alone, 
and listening to the bug-a-boo stories of that Jenny 
of hers.” She was so calm and so much above super- 
stitious fears herself that I was almost ashamed to say 
how glad I had been of her Headingley-causeway 
proposition the night before, and turned off the con- 
versation to something else. 

In the afternoon Miss Pole called on Miss Matty to 
tell her of the adventure — the real adventure they 
182 


SAMUEL BROWN 


183 


had met with on their morning’s walk. They had 
been perplexed about the exact path which they were 
to take across the fields in order to find the knitting 
old woman, and had stopped to inquire at a little way- 
side public-house, standing on the high road to Lon- 
don, about three miles from Cranford. The good 
woman had asked them to sit down and rest them- 
selves while she fetched her husband, who could di- 
rect them better than she could ; and, while they were 
sitting in the sanded parlour, a little girl came in. 
They thought that she belonged to the landlady, and 
began some trifling conversation with her; but, on 
Mrs. Roberts’s return, she told them that the little 
thing was the only child of a couple who were staying 
in the house. And then she began a long story, out 
of which Lady Glenmire and Miss Pole could only 
gather one or two decided facts, which were that, 
about six weeks ago, a light spring cart had broken 
down just before their door, in which there were two 
men, one woman, and this child. One of the men 
was seriously hurt — no bones broken, only “ shaken,” 
the landlady called it ; but he had probably sustained 
some severe internal injury, for he had languished in 
their house ever since, attended by his wife, the mother 
of this little girl. Miss Pole had asked what he was, 
what he looked like. And Mrs. Roberts had made 
answer that he was not like a gentleman, nor yet like 
a common person ; if it had not been that he and his 
wife were such decent, quiet people, she could almost 
have thought he was a mountebank, or something of 
that kind, for they had a great box in the cart, full of 
she did not know what. She had helped to unpack 


184 


CRANFORD 


it, and take out their linen and clothes, when the 
other man — his twin brother, she believed he was — 
had gone off with the horse and cart. 

' Miss Pole had begun to have her suspicions at this 
point, and expressed her idea that it was rather strange 
that the box and cart and horse and all should have 
disappeared ; but good Mrs. Roberts seemed to have 
become quite indignant at Miss Pole’s implied 
suggestion ; in fact, Miss Pole said, she was as angry 
as if Miss Pole had told her that she herself was a 
swindler. As the best way of convincing the ladies, 
she bethought her of begging them to see the wife ; 
and, as Miss Pole said, there was no doubting the 
honest, worn, bronze face of the woman, who, at the 
first tender word from Lady Glenmire, burst into tears, 
which she was too weak to check until some word from 
the landlady made her swallow down her sobs, in order 
that she might testify to the Christian kindness shown 
by Mr. and Mrs. Roberts. Miss Pole came round 
with a swing to as vehement a belief in the sorrowful 
tale as she had been sceptical before ; and, as a proof 
of this, her energy in the poor sufferer’s behalf was 
nothing daunted when she found out that he, and no 
other, was our Signor Brunoni, to whom all Cranford 
had been attributing all manner of evil this six weeks 
past ! Yes ! his wife said his proper name was Sam- 
uel Brown — “ Sam,” she called him — but to the last 
we preferred calling him “ the Signor ” ; it sounded so 
much better. 

The end of their conversation with the Signora 
Brunoni was that it was agreed that he should be 
placed under medical advice, and for any expense 


SAMUEL BROWN 


185 


incurred in procuring this Lady Glenmire promised 
to hold herself responsible, and had accordingly gone 
to Mr. Hoggins to beg him to ride over to the “ Rising 
Sun 11 that very afternoon, and examine into the signor’s 
real state ; and, as Miss Pole said, if it was desirable 
to remove him to Cranford to be more immediately 
under Mr. Hoggins’s eye, she would undertake to 
seek for lodgings and arrange about the rent. Mrs. 
Roberts had been as kind as could be all throughout, 
but it was evident that their long residence there had 
been a slight inconvenience. 

Before Miss Pole left us, Miss Matty and I were as 
full of the morning’s adventure as she was. We talked 
about it all the evening, turning it in every possible 
light, and we went to bed anxious for the morning, 
when we should surely hear from some one what Mr. 
Hoggins thought and recommended ; for, as Miss 
Matty observed, though Mr. Hoggins did say “Jack’s 
up,” “a fig for his heels,” and called Preference 
“ Pref,” she believed he was a very worthy man and a 
very clever surgeon. Indeed, we were rather proud of 
our doctor at Cranford, as a doctor. We often 
wished, when we heard of Queen Adelaide, or the 
Duke of Wellington being ill, that they would send 
for Mr. Hoggins ; but, on consideration, we were 
rather glad they did not, for, if we were ailing, what 
should we do if Mr. Hoggins had been appointed 
Physician-in-Ordinary to the Royal Family? As a 
surgeon we were proud of him ; but as a man — or 
rather, I should say, as a gentleman — we could only 
shake our heads over his name and himself, and 
wished that he had read Lord Chesterfield’s Letters 


186 


CRANFORD 


in the days when his manners were susceptible of 
improvement. Nevertheless, we all regarded his 
dictum in the signor’s case as infallible, and when 
he said that with care and attention he might rally, 
we had no more fear for him. 



But, although we had no more fear, everybody did 
as much as if there was great cause for anxiety — as 
indeed there was until Mr. Hoggins took charge of 
him. Miss Pole looked out clean and comfortable, if 
homely, lodgings ; Miss Matty sent the sedan-chair 
for him, and Martha and I aired it well before it left 
Cranford by holding a warming-pan full of red-hot 


SAMUEL BROWN 


187 


coals in it, and then shutting it up close, smoke ancl 
all, until the time when he should get into it at the 
“ Rising Sun.” Lady Glenmire undertook the medical 
department under Mr. Hoggins’s directions, and rum- 
maged up all Mrs. Jamieson’s medicine glasses, and 
spoons, and bed-tables, in a free-and-easy way, that 
made Miss Matty feel a little anxious as to what that 
lady and Mr. Mulliner might say, if they knew. 
Mrs. Forrester made some of the bread-jelly, for 
which she was so famous, to have ready as a refresh- 
ment in the lodgings when he should arrive. A 
present of this bread-jelly was the highest mark of 
favour dear Mrs. Forrester could confer. Miss Pole 
had once asked her for the receipt, but she had met 
with a very decided rebuff ; that lady told her that 
she could not part with it to any one during her life, 
and that after her death it was bequeathed, as her 
executors would find, to Miss Matty. What Miss 
Matty, or, as Mrs. Forrester called her (remembering 
the clause in her will and the dignity of the occa- 
sion), Miss Matilda Jenkyns — might choose to do 
with the receipt when it came into her possession — 
whether to make it public, or to hand it down as an 
heirloom — she did not know, nor would she dictate. 
And a mould of this admirable, digestible, unique 
bread-jelly was sent by Mrs. Forrester to our poor 
sick conjuror. Who says that the aristocracy are 
proud? Here was a lady, by birth a Tyrrell, and 
descended from the great Sir Walter that shot King 
Rufus, and in whose veins ran the blood of him who 
murdered the little princes in the Tower, going every 
day to see what dainty dishes she could prepare for 


188 


CRANFORD 


Samuel Brown, a mountebank ! But, indeed, it was 
wonderful to see what kind feelings were called out 
by this poor man’s coming amongst us. And also 
wonderful to see how the great Cranford panic, which 
had been occasioned by his first coming in his Turk- 
ish dress, melted away into thin air on his second 
coming — pale and feeble, and with heavy, filmy eyes, 
that only brightened a very little when they fell upon 
the countenance of his faithful wife, or their pale and 
sorrowful little girl. 

Somehow we all forgot to be afraid. I daresay it 
was that finding out that he, who had first excited 
our love of the marvellous by his unprecedented arts, 
had not sufficient every-day gifts to manage a shying 
horse, made us feel as if we were ourselves again. 
Miss Pole came with her little basket at all hours of 
the evening, as if her lonely house and the unfre- 
quented road to it had never been infested by that 
“ murderous gang ” ; Mrs. Forrester said she thought 
that neither Jenny nor she need mind the headless 
lady who wept and wailed in Darkness Lane, for 
surely the power was never given to such beings to 
harm those who went about to try to do what little 
good was in their power, to which Jenny tremblingly 
assented ; but the mistress’s theory had little effect 
on the maid’s practice until she had sewn two pieces 
of red flannel in the shape of a cross on her inner 
garment. 

I found Miss Matty covering her penny ball — the 
ball that she used to roll under her bed — with gay- 
coloured worsted in rainbow stripes. 

“ My dear,” said she, “ my heart is sad for that little 


SAMUEL BROWN 


189 


careworn child. Although her father is a conjuror, 
she looks as if she had never had a good game of 
play in her life. I used to make very pretty balls in 
this way when I was a girl, and I thought I would try 
if I could not make this one smart and take it to 
Phoebe this afternoon. I think ‘the gang’ must 



“ The boys who stole the apples?' 

have left the neighbourhood, for one does not hear 
any more of their violence and robbery now.’* 

We were all of us far too full of the signor’s pre- 
carious state to talk either about robbers or ghosts. 
Indeed, Lady Glenmire said she never had heard of 
any actual robberies, except that two little boys had 
stolen some apples from Farmer Benson’s orchard, 
and that some eggs had been missed on a market- 
day off widow Hayward’s stall. But that was expect- 



190 


CRANFORD 


ing too much of us ; we could not acknowledge that 
we had only had this small foundation for all our 
panic. Miss Pole drew herself up at this remark of 
Lady Glenmire’s, and said “ that she wished she could 
agree with her as to the very small' reason we had 
had for alarm, but with the recollection of a man dis- 
guised as a woman who had endeavoured to force 
himself into her house while his confederates waited 
outside ; with the knowledge gained from Lady Glen- 
mire herself, of the footprints seen on Mrs. Jamieson’s 
flower borders ; with the fact before her of the auda- 
cious robbery committed on Mr. Hoggins at his own 

door ” But here Lady Glenmire broke in with 

a very strong expression of doubt as to whether this 
last story was not an entire fabrication founded upon 
the theft of a cat ; she grew so red while she was 
saying all this that I was not surprised at Miss Pole’s 
manner of bridling up, and I am certain, if Lady 
Glenmire had not been “her ladyship,” we should 
have had a more emphatic contradiction than the 
“Well, to be sure!” and similar fragmentary ejacu- 
lations, which were all that she ventured upon in 
my lady’s presence. But when she was gone Miss 
Pole began a long congratulation to Miss Matty that 
so far they had escaped marriage, which she noticed 
always made people credulous to the last degree ; 
indeed, she thought it argued great natural credulity 
in a woman if she could not keep herself from being 
married ; and in what Lady Glenmire had said about 
Mr. Hoggins’s robbery we had a specimen of what 
people came to if they gave way to such a weakness ; 
evidently Lady Glenmire would swallow anything if 


SAMUEL BROWN 


191 


she could believe the poor vamped-up story about a 
neck of mutton and a pussy with which he had tried 
to impose on Miss Pole, only she had always been on 
her guard against believing too much of what men 
said. 

We were thankful, as Miss Pole desired us to be, 
that we had never been married ; but I think, of the 
two, we were even more thankful that the robbers 
had left Cranford ; at least I judge so from a speech 
of Miss Matty’s that evening, as we sat over the fire, 
in which she evidently looked upon a husband as a 
great protector against thieves, burglars, and ghosts ; 
and said that she did not think that she should dare 
to be always warning young people against matrimony, 
as Miss Pole did continually; to be sure, marriage 
was a risk, as she saw, now she had had some ex- 
perience ; but she remembered the time when she 
had looked forward to being married as much as any 
one. 

“Not to any particular person, my dear,” said she, 
hastily checking herself up as if she were afraid of 
having admitted too much ; “ only the old story, you 
know, of ladies always saying, ‘ When I marry,’ and 
gentlemen, ‘If I marry.’” It was a joke spoken in 
rather a sad tone, and I doubt if either of us smiled ; 
but I could not see Miss Matty’s face by the flickering 
fire-light. In a little while she continued — 

“ But, after all, I have not told you the truth. It 
is so long ago, and no one ever knew how much I 
thought of it at the time, unless, indeed, my dear 
mother guessed ; but I may say that there was a time 
when I did not think I should have been only Miss 


192 


CRANFORD 


Matty Jenkyns all my life; for even if I did meet 
with any one who wished to marry me now (and, as 
Miss Pole says, one is never too safe), I could not 
take him — I hope he would not take it too much to 
heart, but I could ?iot take him — or any one but the 
person I once thought I should be married to ; and 
he is dead and gone, and he never knew how it all 
came about that I said 4 No,’ when I had thought 

many and many a time Well, it’s no matter 

what I thought. God ordains it all, and I am very 
happy, my dear. No one has such kind friends as 
I,” continued she, taking my hand and holding it in 
hers. 

If I had never known of Mr. Holbrook, I could 
have said something in this pause, but as I had, I 
could not think of anything that would come in 
naturally, and so we both kept silence for a little 
time. 

“ My father once made us,” she began, “keep a 
diary, in two columns ; on one side we were to put 
down in the morning what we thought would be the 
course and events of the coming day, and at night 
we were to put down on the other side what really 
had happened. It would be to some people rather 
a sad way of telling their lives ” (a tear dropped upon 
my hand at these words) — “ I don’t mean that mine 
has been sad, only so very different to what I 
expected. I remember, one winter’s evening, sitting 
over our bedroom fire with Deborah — I remember 
it as if it were yesterday — and we were planning 
our future lives, both of us were planning, though 
only she talked about it. She said she should like 


SAMUEL BROWN 


193 


to marry an archdeacon, and write his charges ; and 
you know, my dear, she never was married, and, for 
aught I know, she never spoke to an unmarried arch- 
deacon in her life. I never was ambitious, nor could 
I have written charges, but I thought I could man- 
age a house (my mother used to call me her right 
hand), and I was always so fond of little children — 
the shyest babies would stretch out their little arms 
to come to me ; when I was a girl, I was half my 
leisure time nursing in the neighbouring cottages ; 
but I don’t know how it was, when I grew sad and 
grave — which I did a year or two after this time — 
the little things drew back from me, and I am afraid 
I lost the knack, though I am just as fond of children 
as ever, and have a strange yearning at my heart 
whenever I see a mother with her baby in her arms. 
Nay, my dear ” (and by a sudden blaze which sprang 
up from a fall of the unstirred coals, I saw that her 
eyes were full of tears — gazing intently on some 
vision of what might have been), “ do you know, I 
dream sometimes that I have a little child — always 
the same — a little girl of about two years old ; she 
never grows older, though I have dreamt about her 
for many years. I don’t think I ever dream of any 
words or sounds she makes ; she is very noiseless 
and still, but she comes to me when she is very sorry 
or very glad, and I have wakened with the clasp of 
her dear little arms round my neck. Only last night 
— perhaps because I had gone to sleep thinking of 
this ball for Phoebe — my little darling came in my 
dream, and put up her mouth to be kissed, just as I 
have seen real babies do to real mothers before 


194 


CRANFORD 


going to bed. But all this is nonsense, dear ! only 
don’t be frightened by Miss Pole from being married. 

I can fancy it may be a very happy state, and a little 
credulity helps one on through life very smoothly — 
better than always doubting and doubting and seeing 
difficulties and disagreeables in everything.” 

If I had been inclined to be daunted from matri- 
mony, it would not have been Miss Pole to do it ; it 
would have been the lot of poor Signor Brunoni and 
his wife. And yet again, it was an encouragement to 
see how, through all their cares and sorrows, they 
thought of each other and not of themselves ; and 
how keen were their joys, if they only passed through 
each other, or through the little Phoebe. 

The signora told me, one day, a good deal about 
their lives up to this period. It began by my asking 
her whether Miss Pole’s story of the twin brothers 
was true ; it sounded so wonderful a likeness, that I 
should have had my doubts, if Miss Pole had not been 
unmarried. But the signora, or (as we found out she 
preferred to be called) Mrs. Brown, said it was quite 
true ; that her brother-in-law was by many taken for 
her husband, which was of great assistance to them 
in their profession ; “ though,” she continued, “ how„ 
people can mistake Thomas for the real Signor Bru- 
noni, I can’t conceive ; but he says they do ; so I sup- 
pose I must believe him. Not but what he is a very 
good man ; I am sure I don’t know how we should 
have paid our bill at the ‘ Rising Sun ’ but for the 
money he sends ; but people must know very little 
about art if they can take him for my husband. Why, 
miss, in the ball trick, where my husband spreads his 


SAMUEL BROWN 


195 


fingers wide and throws out his little finger with 
quite an air and a grace, Thomas just clumps up his' 
hand like a fist, and might have ever so many balls 
hidden in it. Besides, he has never been in India, 
and knows nothing of the proper sit of a turban.” 

“Have you been in India?” said I, rather aston- 
ished. 

“Oh yes ! many a year, ma’am. Sam was a ser- 
geant in the 31st; and when the regiment was or- 
dered to India, I drew a lot to go, and I was more 
thankful than I can tell ; for it seemed as if it would 
only be a slow death to me to part from my husband. 
But, indeed, ma’am, if I had known all, I don’t know 
whether I would not rather have died there and then 
than gone through what I have done since. To be 
sure, I’ve been able to comfort Sam, and to be with 
him ; but, ma’am, I’ve lost six children,” said she, 
looking up at me with those strange eyes that I’ve 
never noticed but in mothers of dead children — with 
a kind of wild look in them, as if seeking for what 
they never more might find. “Yes ! Six children 
died off, like little buds nipped untimely, in that cruel 
India. I thought, as each died, I never could — I 
never would — love a child again ; and when the 
next came it had not only its own love, but the 
deeper love that came from the thoughts of its little 
dead brothers and sisters. And when Phoebe was 
coming, I said to my husband, 1 Sam, when the child 
is born, and I am strong I shall leave you ; it will 
cut my heart cruel ; but if this baby dies too, I shall 
go mad ; the madness is in me now ; but if you let 
me go down to Calcutta, carrying my baby step by 


196 


CRANFORD 


step, it will, maybe, work itself off ; and I will save, 
and I will hoard, and I will beg — and I will die, to 
get a passage home to England, where our baby may 
live.’ God bless him! he said I might go; and he 
saved up his pay, and I saved every pice I could get 
for washing or any way ; and when Phoebe came, and 
I grew strong again, I set off. It was very lonely ; 
through the thick forests, dark again with their heavy 
trees — along by the river’s side (but I had been 
brought up near the Avon in Warwickshire, so that 
flowing noise sounded like home) — from station to 
station, from Indian village to village, I went along, 
carrying my child. I had seen one of the officers’ 
ladies with a little picture, ma’am — done by a Catho- 
lic foreigner, ma’am — of the Virgin and the little 
Saviour, ma’am. She had him on her arm, and her 
form was softly curled round him, and their cheeks 
touched. Well, when I went to bid good-bye to this 
lady, for whom I had washed, she cried sadly ; for 
she, too, had lost her children, but she had not an- 
other to save, like me ; and I was bold enough to ask 
her, would she give me that print. And she cried the 
more, and said her children were with that little blessed 
Jesus; and gave it me, and told me she had heard 
it had been painted on the bottom of a cask, which 
made it have that round shape. And when my body 
was very weary, and my heart was sick (for there were 
times when I misdoubted if I could ever reach my 
home, and there were times when I thought of my 
husband, and one time when I thought my baby was 
dying), I took out that picture and looked at it, till I 
could have thought the mother spoke to me, and com- 


SAMUEL BROWN 


197 


forted me. And the natives were very kind. We 
could not understand one another ; but they saw my 
baby on my breast, and they came out to me, and 
brought me rice and milk, and sometimes flowers — I 
have got some of the flowers dried. Then, the next 
morning, I was so tired ; and they wanted me to stay 
with them — I could tell that — and tried to frighten 
me from going into the deep woods, which, indeed, 
looked very strange and dark ; but it seemed to me 
as if Death was following me to take my baby away from 
me ; and as if I must go on, and on — and I thought 
how God had cared for mothers ever since the world 
was made, and w'ould care for me ; so I bade them 
good-bye, and set off afresh. And once when my 
baby was ill, and both she and I needed rest, He led 
me to a place where I found a kind Englishman 
lived, right in the midst of the natives.” 

“ And you reached Calcutta safely at last? ” 

“Yes, safely. Oh! when I knew I had only two 
days’ journey more before me, I could not help it, 
ma’am — it might be idolatry, I cannot tell — but I 
was near one of the native temples, and I went into it 
with my baby to thank God for his great mercy ; for 
it seemed to me that where others had prayed before 
to their God, in their joy or in their agony, was of it- 
self a sacred place. And I got as servant to an 
invalid lady, who grew quite fond of my baby aboard- 
ship ; and, in two years’ time, Sam earned his dis- 
charge, and came home to me, and to our child. 
Then he had to fix on a trade ; but he knew of none ; 
and once, once upon a time, he had learnt some 
tricks from an Indian juggler ; so he set up conjuri 


198 


CRANFORD 


and it answered so well that he took Thomas to help 
him — as his man, you know, not as another conjuror, 
though Thomas has set it up now on his own hook. 
But it has been a great help to us that likeness be- 
tween the twins, and made a good many tricks go off 
well that they made up together. And Thomas is a 
good brother, only he has not the fine carriage of my 
husband, so that I can’t think how he can be taken 
for Signor Brunoni himself, as he says he is.” 

“ Poor little Phoebe ! ” said I, my thoughts going 
back to the baby she carried all those hundred miles. 

“ Ah ! you may think so ! I never thought I should 
have reared her, though, when she fell ill at Chun- 
derabaddad ; but that good kind Aga Jenkyns took 
us in, which I believe was the very saving of her.” 

“Jenkyns ! ” said I. 

“Yes, Jenkyns. I shall think all people of that 
name are kind ; for here is that nice old lady who 
comes every day to take Phoebe a walk ! ” 

But an idea had flashed through my head : could 
the Aga Jenkyns be the lost Peter? True, he was 
reported by many to be dead. But, equally true, some 
had said that he had arrived at the dignity of Great 
Lama of Thibet. Miss Matty thought he was alive. 
I would make further inquiry. 



Cnyajecf to & momccf. 


Was the “poor Peter” of Cranford the Aga Jen- 
kyns of Chunderabaddad, or was he not ? As some- 
body says, that was the question. 

In my own home, whenever people had nothing 
else to do, they blamed me for want of discretion. 
Indiscretion was my bugbear fault. Everybody has a 
bugbear fault ; a sort of standing characteristic — a 
piece de resistance for their friends to cut at ; and in 
general they cut and come again. I was tired of 
being called indiscreet and incautious ; and I deter- 
mined for once to prove myself a model of prudence 
and wisdom. I would not even hint my suspicions 

199 


200 


CRANFORD 


respecting the Aga. I would collect evidence and 
carry it home to lay before my father, as the family 
friend of the two Miss Jenkynses. 

In my search after facts I was often reminded of a 
description my father had once given of a Ladies’ 
Committee that he had had to preside over. He 
said he could not help thinking of a passage in 
Dickens, which spoke of a chorus in which every 
man took the tune he knew best, and sang it to his 
own satisfaction. So, at this charitable committee, 
every lady took the subject uppermost in her mind, 
and talked about it to her own great contentment, but 
not much to the advancement of the subject they had 
met to discuss. But even that committee could have 
been nothing to the Cranford ladies when I attempted 
to gain some clear and definite information as to poor 
Peter’s height, appearance, and when and where he 
was seen and heard of last. For instance, I remem- 
ber asking Miss Pole (and I thought the question 
was very opportune, for I put it when I met her at a 
call at Mrs. Forrester’s, and both the ladies had 
known Peter, and I imagined that they might refresh 
each other’s memories) — I asked Miss Pole what 
was the very last thing they had ever heard about 
him ; and then she named the absurd report to which 
I have alluded, about his having been elected Great 
Lama of Thibet ; and this was a signal for each lady 
to go off on her separate idea. Mrs. Forrester’s 
start was made on the veiled prophet in Lalla Rookh 
— whether I thought he was meant for the Great 
Lama, though Peter was not so ugly, indeed rather 
handsome, if he had not been freckled. I was thank- 


ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED 201 

ful to see her double upon Peter ; but, in a moment, 
the delusive lady was off upon Rowlands’ Kalydor, 
and the merits of cosmetics and hair oils in general, 
and holding forth so fluently that I turned to listen 
to Miss Pole, who (through the llamas, the beasts of 
burden) had got to Peruvian bonds, and the share 
market, and her poor opinion of joint-stock banks in 
general, and of that one in particular in which Miss 
Matty’s money was invested. In vain I put in 
u When was it — in what year was it that you heard 
that Mr. Peter was the Great Lama ? ” They only 
joined issue to dispute whether llamas were carniv- 
orous animals or not ; in which dispute they were 
not quite on fair grounds, as Mrs. Forrester (after 
they had grown warm and cool again) acknowledged 
that she always confused carnivorous and graminiv- 
orous together, just as she did horizontal and per- 
pendicular ; but then she apologised for it very 
prettily, by saying that in her day the only use peo- 
ple made of four-syllabled words was to teach how 
they should be spelt. 

The only fact I gained from this conversation was 
that certainly Peter had last been heard of in India, 
“ or that neighbourhood ” ; and that this scanty in- 
telligence of his whereabouts had reached Cranford 
in the year when Miss Pole had bought her Indian 
muslin gown, long since worn out (we washed it and 
mended it, and traced its decline and fall into a win- 
dow-blind, before we could go on) ; and in a year 
when Wombwell came to Cranford, because Miss 
Matty had wanted to see an elephant in order that 
she might the better imagine Peter riding on one ; 


202 


CRANFORD 


and had seen a boa-constrictor too, which was more 
than she wished to imagine in her fancy-pictures of 
Peter’s locality; and in a year when Miss Jenkyns 



“ Miss yenkyns used to say." 


had learned some piece of poetry off by heart, and 
used to say, at all the Cranford parties, how Peter was 
“ surveying mankind from China to Peru,” which 
everybody had thought very grand, and rather appro- 


ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED 


203 


priate, because India was between China and Peru, if 
you took care to turn the globe to the left instead 
of the right. 

I suppose all these inquiries of mine, and the con- 
sequent curiosity excited in the minds of my friends, 
made us. blind and deaf to what was going on around 
us. It seemed to me as if the sun rose and shone, 
and as if the rain rained on Cranford, just as usual, 
and I did not notice any sign of the times that could 
be considered as a prognostic of any uncommon event ; 
and, to the best of 'my belief, not only Miss Matty 
and Mrs. Forrester, but even Miss Pole herself, whom 
we looked upon as a kind of prophetess, from the 
knack she had of foreseeing things before they came 
to pass — although she did not like to disturb her 
friends by telling them her foreknowledge — even 
Miss Pole herself was breathless with astonishment 
when she came to tell us of the astounding piece of 
news,. But I must recover myself ; the contemplation 
of it, even at this distance of time, has taken away 
my breath and my grammar, and unless I subdue my 
emotion, my spelling will go too. 

We were sitting — Miss Matty and I — much as 
usual, she in the blue chintz easy-chair, with her back 
to the light, and her knitting in her hand, I reading 
aloud the St. James's Chronicle. A few minutes 
more, and we should have gone to make the little 
alterations in dress usual before calling-time (twelve 
o’clock) in Cranford. I remember the scene and the 
date well. We had been talking of the signor’s 
rapid recovery since the warmer weather had set in, 
and praising Mr. Hoggins’s skill, and lamenting his 


204 


CRANFORD 


want of refinement and manner (it seems a curious 
coincidence that this should have been our subject, 
but so it was), when a knock was heard — a caller’s 
knock — three distinct taps — and we were flying 
(that is to say, Miss Matty could not walk very fast, 
having had a touch of rheumatism) to our rooms, to 
change cap and collars, when Miss Pole arrested us 
by calling out, as she came up the stairs, “ Don’t go 
— I can’t wait — it is not twelve, I know — but never 
mind your dress — I must speak to you.” We did 
our best to look as if it was not we who had made 
the hurried movement, the sound of which she had 
heard; for, of course, we did not like to have it 
supposed that we had any old clothes that it was 
convenient to wear out in the “ sanctuary of home,” 
as Miss Jenkyns once prettily called the back parlour, 
where she was tying up preserves. So we threw our 
gentility with double force into our manners, and 
very genteel we were for two minutes while Miss 
Pole recovered breath, and excited our curiosity 
strongly by lifting up her hands in amazement, and 
bringing them down in silence, as if what she had to 
say was too big for words, and could only be expressed' 
by pantomime. 

“What do you think, Miss Matty? What do you 
think? Lady Glenmire is to marry — is to be mar- 
ried, I mean — Lady Glenmire — Mr. Hoggins — Mr. 
Hoggins is going to marry Lady Glenmire !” 

“Marry !” said we. “Marry ! Madness !” 

“ Marry ! ” said Miss Pole, with the decision that 
belonged to her character. “/ said marry! as you 
do ; and I also said, * What a fool my lady is going 


ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED 


205 


to make of herself ! ’ I could have said ‘ Madness ! ’ 
but I controlled myself, for it was in a public shop 
that I heard of it. Where feminine delicacy is gone 
to, I don’t know ! You and I, Miss Ma.tty, would 
have been ashamed to have known that our marriage 
was spoken of in a grocer’s shop, in the hearing of 
shopmen ! ” 

“ But,” said Miss Matty, sighing as one recovering 
from a blow, “perhaps it is not true. Perhaps we 
are doing her injustice.” 

“No,” said Miss Pole. “I have taken care to as- 
certain that. I went straight to Mrs. Fitz-Adam, to 
borrow a cookery book which I knew she had ; and 
I introduced my congratulations a propos of the diffi- 
culty gentlemen must have in housekeeping; and 
Mrs. Fitz-Adam bridled up, and said that she believed 
it was true, though how and where I could have 
heard it she did not know. She said her brother 
and Lady Glenmire had come to an understanding 
at last. ‘Understanding!’ such a coarse word! 
But my lady will have to come down to many 
a want of refinement. I have reason to believe 
Mr. Hoggins sups on bread-and-cheese and beer 
every night.” 

“ Marry! ” said Miss Matty once again. “ Well! I 
never thought of it. Two people that we know going 
to be married. It’s coming very near! ” 

“ So near that my heart stopped beating, when I 
heard of it, while you might, have counted twelve,” 
said Miss Pole. 

“One does not know whose turn may come next. 
Here, in Cranford, poor Lady Glenmire might have 


206 


CRANFORD 


thought herself safe,” said Miss Matty, with a gentle 
pity in her tones. 

“Bah!” said Miss Pole, with a toss of her head. 
“ Don’t you remember poor dear Captain Brown’s 
song ‘ Tibbie Fowler,’ and the line — 

‘ Set her on the Tintock Tap, 

The wind will blaw a man till her.’ ” 

“That was because ‘Tibbie Fowler 1 was rich, I 
think.” 

“Well ! there is a kind of attraction about Lady Glen- 
mire that I, for one, should be ashamed to have.” 

I put in my wonder. “ But how can she have 
fancied Mr. Hoggins? I am not surprised that Mr. 
Hoggins liked her.” 

“Oh! I don’t know. Mr. Hoggins is rich, and 
very pleasant-looking,” said Miss Matty, “ and very 
good-tempered and kind-hearted.” 

“ She has married for an establishment, that’s it. 
I suppose she takes the surgery with it,” said Miss 
Pole, with a little dry laugh at her own joke. But, 
like many people who think they have made a severe 
and sarcastic speech, which yet is clever of its kind, 
she began to relax in her grimness from the moment 
when she made this allusion to the surgery ; and we 
turned to speculate on the way in which Mrs. Jamie- 
son would receive the news. The person whom she 
had left in charge of her house to keep off followers 
from her maids to set up a follower of her own! 
And that follower a man whom Mrs. Jamieson had 
tabooed as vulgar, and inadmissible to Cranford 
society, not merely on account of his name, but be- 


ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED 


207 



11 Lady Glenmire'' 


cause of his voice, his complexion, his boots, smelling 
of the stable, and himself, smelling of drugs. Had 
he ever been to see Lady Glenmire at Mrs. Jaifiie- 
son’s ? Chloride of lime would not purify the house 
in its owner’s estimation if he had. Or had their 


208 


CRANFORD 


interviews been confined to the occasional meetings 
in the chamber of the poor sick conjuror, to whom, 
with all our sense of the mesalliance , we could not 
help allowing that they had both been exceedingly 
kind ? And now it turned out that a servant of Mrs. 
Jamieson’s had been ill, and Mr. Hoggins had been 
attending her for some weeks. So the wolf had got 
into the fold, and now he was carrying off the shep- 
herdess. What would Mrs. Jamieson say? We 
looked into the darkness of futurity as a child gazes 
after a rocket up in the cloudy sky, full of wondering 
expectation of the rattle, the discharge, and the 
brilliant shower of sparks and light. Then we 
brought ourselves down to earth and the present 
time by questioning each other (being all equally 
ignorant, and all equally without the slightest data to 
build any conclusions upon) as to when it would 
take place? Where? How much a year Mr. Hog- 
gins had? Whether she would drop her title? And 
how Martha and the other correct servants in Cran- 
ford would ever be brought to announce a married 
couple as Lady Glenmire and Mr. Hoggins? But 
would they be visited? Would Mrs. Jamieson let 
us? Or must we choose between the Honourable 
Mrs. Jamieson and the degraded Lady Glenmire? 
We all liked Lady Glenmire the best. She was 
bright, and kind, and sociable, and agreeable ; and 
Mrs. Jamieson was dull, and inert, and pompous, and 
tiresome. But we had acknowledged the sway of 
the latter so long, that it seemed like a kind of dis- 
loyalty now even to meditate disobedience to the 
prohibition we anticipated. 


ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED 


209 


Mrs. Forrester surprised us in our darned caps and 
patched collars ; and we forgot all about them in our 
eagerness to see how she would bear the information, 
which we honourably left to Miss Pole to impart, 
although, if we had been inclined to take unfair 
advantage, we might have rushed in ourselves, for 
she had a most out-of-place fit of coughing for five 
minutes after Mrs. Forrester entered the room. I 
shall never forget the imploring expression of her 
eyes as she looked at us over her pocket-handker- 
chief. They said as plain as words could speak, 
“ Don’t let nature deprive me of the treasure which 
is mine, although for a time I can make no use of 
it.” And we did not. 

Mrs. Forrester’s surprise was equal to ours; and 
her sense of injury rather greater, because she had to 
feel for her Order, and saw more fully than we could 
do how such conduct brought stains on the aristoc- 
racy. 

When she and Miss Pole left us we endeavoured 
to subside into calmness ; but Miss Matty was really 
upset by the intelligence she had heard. She reck- 
oned it up, and it was more than fifteen years since 
she had heard of any of her acquaintance going to 
be married, with the one exception of Miss Jessie 
Brown ; and, as she said, it gave her quite a shock, 
and made her feel as if she could not think what 
would happen next. 

I don’t know whether it is a fancy of mine, or a 
real fact, but I have noticed that, just after the an- 
nouncement of an engagement in any set, the unmar- 
ried ladies in that set flutter out in an unusual gaiety 


210 


CRANFORD 


and newness of dress, as much as to say, in a tacit 
and unconscious manner, “We also are spinsters.” 
Miss Matty and Miss Pole talked and thought more 
about bonnets, gowns, caps, and shawls, during the 
fortnight that succeeded this call, than I had known 
them do for years before. But it might be the spring 
weather, for' it was a warm and pleasant March ; and 
merinoes and beavers, and woollen materials of all 
sorts were but ungracious receptacles of the bright 
sun’s glancing rays. It had not been Lady Glenmire’s 
dress that had won Mr. Hoggins’s heart, for she 
went about on her errands of kindness more shabby 
than ever. Although in the hurried glimpses I 
caught of her at church or elsewhere she appeared 
rather to shun meeting any of her friends, her face 
seemed to have almost something of the flush of 
youth in it ; her lips looked redder and more trem- 
bling full than in their old compressed state, and her 
eyes dwelt on all things with a lingering light, as if 
she was learning to love Cranford and its belongings. 
Mr. Hoggins looked broad and radiant, and creaked 
up the middle aisle at church in a bran-new pair of 
top-boots — an audible, as well as visible, sign of his 
purposed change of state ; for the tradition went, 
that the boots he had worn till now were the iden- 
tical pair in which he first set out on his rounds in 
Cranford twenty-five years ago ; only they had been 
new-pieced, high and low, top and bottom, heel and 
sole, black leather and brown leather, more times 
than any one could tell. 

None of the ladies in Cranford chose to sanction 
the marriage by congratulating either of the parties. 


ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED 


211 



Mr. Hoggins looked radiant.” 


We wished to ignore the whole affair until our liege 
lady, Mrs. Jamieson, returned. Till she came back 
to give us our cue, we felt that it would be better to 
consider the engagement in the same light as the 


212 


CRANFORD 


Queen of Spain’s legs — facts which certainly existed, 
but the less said about the better. This restraint 
upon our tongues — for you see if we did not speak 
about it to any of the parties concerned, how could 
we get answers to the questions that we longed to 
ask? — was beginning to be irksome, and our idea 
of the dignity of silence was paling before our curi- 
osity, when another direction was given to our 
thoughts, by an announcement on the part of the 
principal shopkeeper of Cranford, who ranged the 
trades from grocer and cheese-monger to man-mil- 
liner, as occasion required, that the Spring Fashions 
were arrived, and would be exhibited on the following 
Tuesday at his rooms in High Street. Now Miss 
Matty had been only waiting for this before buying 
herself a new silk gown. I had offered, it is true, 
to send to Drumble for patterns, but she had rejected 
my proposal, gently implying that she had not for- 
gotten her disappointment about the sea-green turban. 
I was thankful that I was on the spot now, to coun- 
teract the dazzling fascination of any yellow or scar- 
let silk. 

I must say a word or two here about myself. I 
have spoken of my father’s old friendship for the 
J enkyns family ; indeed, I am not sure if there was 
not some distant relationship. He had willingly al- 
lowed me to remain all the winter at Cranford, in 
consideration of a letter which Miss Matty had writ- 
ten to him about the time of the panic, in which I 
suspect she had exaggerated my powers and my 
bravery as a defender of the house. But now that 
the days were longer and more cheerful, he was be- 


ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED 


213 


ginning to urge the necessity of my return ; and I 
only delayed in a sort of odd forlorn hope that if I 
could obtain any clear information, I might make the 
account given by the signora of the Aga Jenkyns 
tally with that of “ poor Peter,” his appearance and 
disappearance, which I had winnowed out of the con- 
versation of Miss Pole and Mrs. Forrester. 



The very Tuesday morning on which Mr. Johnson 
was going to show the fashions, the post-woman 
brought two letters to the house. I say the post- 
woman, but I should say the postman’s wife. He was 
a lame shoemaker, a very clean, honest man, much 
respected in the town ; but he never brought the 
letters round except on unusual occasions, such as 
Christmas Day or Good Friday; and on those days 
the letters, which should have been delivered at eight 
in the morning, did not make their appearance until 
two or three in the afternoon, for every one liked poor 
Thomas, and gave him a welcome on these festive 
occasions. He used to say, “ He was welly stawed wi’ 
eating, for there were three or four houses where nowt 
would serve ’em but he must share in their breakfast ” ; 
and by the time he had done his last breakfast, he came 
to some other friend who was beginning dinner ; but 
come what might in the way of temptation, Tom was 
always sober, civil, and smiling ; and, as Miss Jenkyns 
used to say, it was a lesson in patience, that she 
doubted not would call out that precious quality in 
214 


STOPPED PAYMENT 


215 


some minds, where, but for Thomas, it might have lain 
dormant and undiscovered. Patience was certainly 
very dormant in Miss Jenkyns’s mind. She was 
always expecting letters, and always drumming on 
the table till the post-woman had called or gone past. 
On Christmas Day and Good Friday she drummed 
from breakfast till church, from church-time till two- 
o’clock — unless when the fire wanted stirring, when 
she invariably knocked down the fire-irons, and scolded 
Miss Matty for it. But equally certain was the hearty 
welcome and the good dinner for Thomas ; Miss 
Jenkyns standing over him like a bold dragoon, 
questioning him as to his children — what they were 
doing — what school they went to ; upbraiding him if 
another was likely to make its appearance, but sending 
even the little babies the shilling and the mince-pie 
which was her gift to all the children, with half-a-crown 
in addition for both father and mother. The post was 
not half of so much consequence to dear Miss Matty ; 
but not for the world would she have diminished 
Thomas’s welcome and his dole, though I could see 
that she felt rather shy over the ceremony, which 
had been regarded by Miss Jenkyns as a glorious 
opportunity for giving advice and benefiting her 
fellow-creatures. Miss Matty would steal the money 
all in a lump into his hand, as if she were ashamed 
of herself. Miss Jenkyns gave him each individual 
coin separate, with a “ There ! that’s for yourself ; 
that’s for Jenny,” etc. Miss Matty would even beckon 
Martha out of the kitchen while he ate his food ; and 
once, to my knowledge, winked at its rapid disappear- 
ance into a blue cotton pocket-handkerchief. Miss 


216 


CRANFORD 


Jenkyns almost scolded him if he did not leave a clean 
plate, however heaped it might have been, and gave 
an injunction with every mouthful. 

I have wandered a long way from the two letters 
that awaited us on the breakfast-table that Tuesday 
morning. Mine was from my father. Miss Matty’s 
was printed. My father’s was just a man’s letter ; I 
mean it was very dull, and gave no information 
beyond that he was well, that they had had a good 
deal of rain, that trade was very stagnant, and there 
were many disagreeable rumours afloat. He then 
asked me if I knew whether Miss Matty still retained 
her shares in the Town and County Bank, as there 
were very unpleasant reports about it ; though nothing 
more than he had always foreseen, and had prophesied 
to Miss Jenkyns years ago, when she would invest 
their little property in it — the only unwise step that 
clever woman had ever taken, to his knowledge (the 
only time she ever acted against his advice, I knew). 
However, if anything had gone wrong, of course I 
was not to think of leaving Miss Matty while I could 
be of any use, etc. 

“ Who is your letter from, my dear? Mine is a very 
civil invitation, signed ‘ Edwin Wilson,’ asking me 
to attend an important meeting of the shareholders of 
the Town and County Bank, to be held in Drumble, 
on Thursday the twenty-first. I am sure, it is very 
attentive of them to remember me.” 

I did not like to hear of this “ important meeting,” 
for, though I did not know much about business, I 
feared it confirmed what my father said : how'ever, 
I thought, ill news always came fast enough, so I 


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217 


resolved to say nothing about my alarm, and merely 
told her that my father was well, and sent his kind 
regards to her. She kept turning over and admiring 
her letter. At last she spoke — 

“ I remember their sending one to Deborah just like 
this ; but that I did not wonder at, for everybody knew 
she was so clear-headed. I am afraid I could not 
help them much ; indeed, if they came to accounts, 
I should be quite in the way, for I never could do sums 
in my head. Deborah, I know, rather wished to go, 
and went so far as to order a new bonnet for the 
occasion ; but when the time came she had a bad cold ; 
so they sent her a very polite account of what they 
had done. Chosen a director, I think it was. Do 
you think they want me to help them to choose a 
director ? I am sure I should choose your father 
at once.” 

“My father has no shares in the bank,” said I. 

“ Oh no ! I remember. He objected very much to 
Deborah’s buying any, I believe. But she was quite 
the woman of business, and always judged for her- 
self ; and here, you see, they have paid eight per cent 
all these years.” 

It was a very uncomfortable subject to me, with 
my half-knowledge ; so I thought I would change the 
conversation, and I asked at what time she thought 
we had better go and see the fashions. “Well, my 
dear,” she said, “ the thing is this : it is not etiquette 
to go till after twelve ; but then, you see, all Cranford 
will be there, and one does not like to be too curious 
about dress and trimmings and caps with all the world 
looking on. It is never genteel to be over-curious on 


218 


CRANFORD 


these occasions. Deborah had the knack of always 
looking as if the latest fashion was nothing new 
to her ; a manner she had caught from Lady Arley, 
who did see all the new modes in London, you know. 
So I thought we would just slip down this morning, 
soon after breakfast — for I do want half a pound of 
tea — and then we could go up and examine the things 
at our leisure, and see exactly how my new silk gown 
must be made ; and then, after twelve, we could go 
with our minds disengaged, and free from thoughts 
of dress. 

We began to talk of Miss Matty’s new silk gown. 
I discovered that it would be really the first time in 
her life that she had had to choose anything of 
consequence for herself: for Miss Jenkyns had al- 
ways been the more decided character, whatever her 
taste might have been ; and it is astonishing how 
such people carry the world before them by the mere 
force of will. Miss Matty anticipated the sight of the 
glossy folds with as much delight as if the five sov- 
ereigns, set apart for the purchase, could buy all the 
silks in the shop ; and (remembering my own loss of 
two hours in a toyshop before I could tell on what 
wonder to spend a silver threepence) I was very glad 
that we were going early, that dear Miss Matty might 
have leisure for the delights of perplexity. 

If a happy sea-green could be met with, the gown 
was to be sea-green : if not, she inclined to maize, and 
I to silver gray ; and we discussed the requisite num- 
ber of breadths until we arrived at the shop-door. 
We were to buy the tea, select the silk, and then 
clamber up the iron corkscrew stairs that led into 


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219 


what was once a loft, though now a fashion show- 
room. 

The young men at Mr. Johnson’s had on their best 
looks, and their best cravats, and pivoted themselves 
over the counter with surprising activity. They 



“ Over the counter." 


wanted to show us upstairs at once ; but on the prin- 
ciple of business first and pleasure afterwards, we 
stayed to purchase the tea. Here Miss Matty’s ab- 
sence of mind betrayed itself. If she was made aware 
that she had been drinking green tea at any time, she 
always thought it her duty to lie awake half through the 


220 


CRANFORD 


night afterward (I have known her take it in ignorance 
many a time without such effects), and consequently 
green tea was prohibited the house ; yet to-day she 
herself asked for the obnoxious article, under the im- 
pression that she was talking about the silk. How- 
ever, the mistake was soon rectified ; and then the 
silks were unrolled in good truth. By this time the 
shop was pretty well filled, for it was Cranford mar- 
ket-day, and many of the farmers and country people 
from the neighbourhood round came in, sleeking down 
their hair, and glancing shyly about, from under their 
eyelids, as anxious to take back some notion of the 
unusual gaiety to the mistress or the lasses at home, 
and yet feeling that they were out of place among the 
smart shopmen and gay shawls and summer prints. 
One honest-looking man, however, made his way up 
to the counter at which we stood, and boldly asked to 
look at a shawl or two. The other country folk con- 
fined themselves to the grocery side ; but our neigh- 
bour was evidently too full of some kind intention 
towards mistress, wife, or daughter, to be shy ; and it 
soon became a question with me, whether he or Miss 
Matty would keep their shopman the longest time. 
He thought each shawl more beautiful than the last ; 
and, as for Miss Matty, she smiled and sighed over 
each fresh bale that was brought out ; one colour set 
off another, and the heap together would, as she said, 
make even the rainbow look poor. 

“ I am afraid,” said she, hesitating, 11 whichever I 
choose I shall wish I had taken another. Look at 
this lovely crimson! it would be so warm in winter. 
But spring is coming on, you know. I wish I could 


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221 


have a gown for every season,” said she, dropping 
her voice — as we all did in Cranford whenever we 
talked of anything we wished for but could not af- 
ford. “ However,” she continued, in a louder and 
more cheerful tone, “it would give me a great deal of 
trouble to take care of them if I had them ; so, I think, 
I'll only take one. But which must it be, my dear?” 

And now she hovered over a lilac with yellow 
spots, while I pulled out a quiet sage-green that had 
faded into insignificance under the more brilliant 
colours, but which was nevertheless a good silk in 
its humble way. Our attention was called off to our 
neighbour. He had chosen a shawl of about thirty 
shillings’ value ; and his face looked broadly happy, 
under the anticipation, no doubt, of the pleasant 
surprise he should give to some Molly or Jenny at 
home ; he had tugged a leathern purse out of his 
breeches-pocket, and had offered a five-pound note 
in payment for the shawl, and for some parcels which 
had been brought round to him from the grocery 
counter ; and it was just at this point that he at- 
tracted our notice. The shopman was examining the 
note with a puzzled, doubtful air. 

“Town and County Bank! I am not sure, sir, but 
I believe we have received a warning against notes 
issued by this bank only this morning. I will just 
step and ask Mr. Johnson, sir; but I’m afraid I must 
trouble you for payment in cash, or in a note of a 
different bank.” 

I never saw a man’s countenance fall so suddenly 
into dismay and bewilderment. It was almost pite- 
ous to see the rapid change. 


222 


CRANFORD 


“Dang it!” said he, striking his fist down on the 
table, as if to try which was the harder, “ the chap talks 
as if notes and gold were to be had for the picking up.” 



Miss Matty had forgotten her silk gown in her 
interest for the man. I don’t think she had caught 
the name of the bank, and in my nervous cowardice 
I was anxious that she should not ; and so I began 


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223 


admiring the yellow-spotted lilac gown that I had 
been utterly condemning only a minute before. But 
it was of no use. 

“ What bank was it ? I mean, what bank did your 
note belong to?” 

“Town and County Bank.” 

“ Let me see it,” said she quietly to the shopman, 
gently taking it out of his hand, as he brought it back 
to return it to the farmer. 

Mr. Johnson was very sorry, but, from information 
he had received, the notes issued by that bank were 
little better than waste paper. 

“ I don’t understand it,” said Miss Matty to me in 
a low voice. “That is our bank, is it not? — the 
Town and County Bank?” 

“Yes,” said I. “This lilac silk will just match 
the ribbons in your new cap, I believe,” I continued, 
holding up the folds so as to catch the light, and 
wishing that the man would make haste and be gone, 
and yet having a new wonder, that had only just 
sprung up, how far it was wise or right in me to 
allow Miss Matty to make this expensive purchase if 
the affairs of the bank were really so bad as the re- 
fusal of the note implied. 

But Miss Matty put on the soft dignified manner 
peculiar to her, rarely used, and yet which became 
her so well, and laying her hand gently on mine, she 
said — 

“ Never mind the silks for a few minutes, dear. I 
don’t understand you, sir,” turning now to the shop- 
man, who had been attending to the farmer. “ Is 
this a forged note ? ” 


224 


CRANFORD 


“ Oh no, ma’am. It is a true note of its kind ; but 
you see, ma’am, it is a joint-stock bank, and there are 
reports out that it is likely to break. Mr. Johnson is 
only doing his duty, ma’am, as I am sure Mr. Dobson 
knows.” 

But Mr. Dobson could not respond to the appealing 
bow by any answering smile. He was turning the 
note absently over in his fingers, looking gloomily 
enough at the parcel containing the lately-chosen 
shawl. 

u It’s hard upon a poor man,” said he, u as earns 
every farthing with the sweat of his brow. However, 
there’s no help for it. You must take back your 
shawl, my man ; Lizzie must do on with her cloak for 
a while. And yon figs for the little ones — I promised 
them to ’em — I’ll take them ; but the ’bacco, and the 
other things ” 

“ I will give you five sovereigns for your note, my 
good man,” said Miss Matty. “ I think there is some 
great mistake about it, for I am one of the share- 
holders, and I’m sure they would have told me if 
things had not been going on right.” 

The shopman whispered a word or two across the 
table to Miss Matty. She looked at him with a dubi- 
ous air. 

“ Perhaps so,” said she. “ But I don’t pretend to 
understand business ; I only know that if it is going to 
fail, and if honest people are to lose their money be- 
cause they have taken our notes — I can’t explain 
myself,” said she, suddenly becoming aware that she 
had got into a long sentence with four people for 
audience ; “ only I would rather exchange my gold for 


STOPPED PAYMENT 


225 


the note, if you please,” turning to the farmer, “ and 
then you can take your wife the shawl. It is only 
going without my gown a few days longer,” she con- 
tinued, speaking to me. “ Then, I have no doubt, 
everything will be cleared up.” 

“But if it is cleared up the wrong way ?” said I. 

“ Why, then it will only have been common honesty 
in me, as a shareholder, to have given this good man 
the money. I am quite clear about it in my own 
mind ; but, you know, I can never speak quite as 
comprehensively as others can ; only you must give 
me your note, Mr. Dobson, if you please, and go on 
with your purchases with these sovereigns.” 

The man looked at her with silent gratitude — too 
awkward to put his thanks into words ; but he hung 
back for a minute or two, fumbling with his note. 

“ I’m loth to make another one lose instead of me, 
if it is a loss ; but, you see, five pounds is a deal of 
money to a man with a family ; and, as you say, ten 
to one in a day or two the note will be as good as 
gold again.” 

“No hope of that, my friend,” said the shopman. 

“ The more reason why I should take it,” said Miss 
Matty quietly. She pushed her sovereigns towards 
the man, who slowly laid his note down in exchange. 
“ Thank you. I will wait a day or two before I 
purchase any of these silks ; perhaps you will then 
have a greater choice. My dear, will you come up- 
stairs ? ” 

We inspected the fashions with as minute and 
curious an interest as if the gown to be made after 
them had been bought. I could not see that the little 


226 


CRANFORD 


event in the shop below had in the least damped Miss 
Matty’s curiosity as to the make of sleeves or the sit 
of skirts. She once or twice exchanged congratula- 
tions with me on our private and leisurely view of the 
bonnets and shawls ; but I was, all the time, not so sure 
that our examination was so utterly private, for I 
caught glimpses of a figure dodging behind the cloaks 
and mantles ; and, by a dexterous move, I came face 
to face with Miss Pole, also in morning costume (the 
principal feature of which was her being without 
teeth, and wearing a veil to conceal the deficiency), 
come on the same errand as ourselves. But she 
quickly took her departure, because, as she said, she 
had a bad headache, and did not feel herself up to con- 
versation. 

As we came down through the shop, the civil Mr. 
Johnson was awaiting us; he had been informed of 
the exchange of the note for gold, and with much 
good feeling and real kindness, but with a little want 
of tact, he wished to condole with Miss Matty, and 
impress upon her the true state of the case. I could 
only hope that he had heard an exaggerated rumour, 
for he said that her shares were worse than nothing, 
and that the bank could not pay a shilling in the 
pound. I was glad that Miss Matty seemed still a 
little incredulous ; but I could not tell how much of 
this was real or assumed, with that self-control which 
seemed habitual to ladies of Miss Matty’s standing in 
Cranford, who would have thought their dignity com- 
promised by the slightest expression of surprise, dis- 
may, or any similar feeling to an inferior in station, 
or in a public shop. However, we walked home very 


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227 



silently. I am ashamed to say, I believe I was rather 
vexed and annoyed at Miss Matty’s conduct in taking 
the note to herself so decidedly. I had so set my heart 
upon her having a new silk gown, which she wanted 
sadly; in general she was so undecided anybody 


228 


CRANFORD 


might turn her round ; in this case I had felt that it 
was no use attempting it, but I was not the less put 
out at the result. 

Somehow, after twelve o’clock, we both acknowl- 
edged to a sated curiosity about the fashions, and to 
a certain fatigue of body (which was, in fact, depres- 
sion of mind) that indisposed us to go out again. 
But still we never spoke of the note ; till, all at once, 
something possessed me to ask Miss Matty if she 
would think it her duty to offer sovereigns for all 
the notes of the Town and County Bank she met 
with ? I could have bitten my tongue out the min- 
ute I had said it. She looked up rather sadly, and 
as if I had thrown a new perplexity into her already 
distressed mind ; and for a minute or two she did not 
speak. Then she said — my own dear Miss Matty 
— without a shade of reproach in her voice — 

“ My dear, I never feel as if my mind was what 
people call very strong ; and it’s often hard enough 
work for me to settle what I ought to do with the 
case right before me. I was very thankful to — I 
was very thankful, that I saw my duty this morning, 
with the poor man standing by me ; but it’s rather a 
strain upon me to keep thinking and thinking what I 
should do if such and such a thing happened ; and, I 
believe, I had rather wait and see what really does 
come ; and I don’t doubt I shall be helped then, if I 
don’t fidget myself, and get too anxious beforehand. 
You know, love, I’m not like Deborah. If Deborah 
had lived, I’ve no doubt she would have seen after 
them, before they had got themselves into this 
state.” 


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229 


We had neither of us much appetite for dinner, 
though we tried to talk cheerfully about indifferent 
things. When we returned into the drawing-room, 
Miss Matty unlocked her desk and began to look over 
her account-books. I was so penitent for what I had 
said in the morning, that I did not choose to take 
upon myself the presumption to suppose that I could 
assist her ; I rather left her alone, as, with puzzled 
brow, her eye followed her pen up and down the 
ruled page. By and by she shut the book, locked 
her desk, and came and drew a chair to mine, where 
I sat in moody sorrow over the fire. I stole my hand 
into hers ; she clasped it, but did not speak a word. 
At last she said, with forced composure in her 
voice, u If that bank goes wrong, I shall lose one 
hundred and forty-nine pounds thirteen shillings and 
fourpence a year ; I shall only have thirteen pounds 
a year left.” I squeezed her hand hard and tight. 
I did not know what to say. Presently (it was too 
dark to see her face) I felt her fingers work convul- 
sively in my grasp ; and I knew she was going to 
speak again. I heard the sobs in her voice as she 
said, “ I hope it’s not wrong — not wicked — but, oh ! 
I am so glad poor Deborah is spared this. She could 
not have borne to come down in the world — she had 
such a noble, lofty spirit.” 

This was all she said about the sister who had in- 
sisted upon investing their little property in that un- 
lucky bank. We were later in lighting the candle 
than usual that night, and until that light shamed us 
into speaking, we sat together very silently and 
sadly. 


230 


CRANFORD 


However, we took to our work after tea with a 
kind of forced cheerfulness (which soon became real 
as far as it went), talking of that never-ending won- 
der, Lady Glenmire’s engagement. Miss Matty was 
almost coming round to think it a good thing. 

“ I don’t mean to deny that men are troublesome 
in a house. I don’t judge from my own experience, 
for my father was neatness itself, and wiped his shoes 
on coming in as carefully as any woman ; but still a 
man has a sort of knowledge of what should be done 
in difficulties, that it is very pleasant to have one at 
hand ready to lean upon. Now r , Lady Glenmire, 
instead of being tossed about, and wondering where 
she is to settle, will be certain of a home among 
pleasant and kind people, such as our good Miss 
Pole and Mrs. Forrester. And Mr. Hoggins is 
really a very personable man ; and as for his manners, 
why, if they are not very polished, I have known 
people with very good hearts, and very clever minds 
too, who were not what some people reckoned re- 
fined, but who were both true and tender.” 

She fell off into a soft reverie about Mr. Holbrook, 
and I did not interrupt her, I was so busy maturing 
a plan I had had in my mind for some days, but 
which this threatened failure of the bank had brought 
to a crisis. That night, after Miss Matty went to 
bed, I treacherously lighted the candle again, and sat 
down in the drawing-room to compose a letter to the 
Aga Jenkyns, a letter which should affect him if he 
were Peter, and yet seem a mere statement of dry 
facts if he were a stranger. The church clock pealed 
out two before I had done. 


STOPPED PAYMENT 


231 


The next morning news came, both official and 
otherwise, that the Town and County Bank had 
stopped payment. Miss Matty was ruined. 

She tried to speak quietly to me ; but when she 
came to the actual fact that she would have but about 
five shillings a week to live upon, she could not re- 
strain a few tears. 

“ I am not crying for myself, dear,” said she, wiping 
them away ; “ I believe I am crying for the very silly 
thought of how my mother would grieve if she could 
know ; she always cared for us so much more than 
for herself. But many a poor person has less, and I 
am not very extravagant, and, thank God, when the 
neck of mutton, and Martha’s wages, and the rent 
are paid, I have not a farthing owing. Poor Martha ! 
I think she’ll be sorry to leave me.” 

Miss Matty smiled at me through her tears, and she 
would fain have had me see only the smile, not the 
tears. * 



Oharirr XIV. 
ertc/jr *n yvfetr 


It was an example to me, and I fancy it might be 
to many others, to see how immediately Miss Matty 
set about the retrenchment which she knew to be 
right under her altered circumstances. While she 
went down to speak to Martha, and break the intel- 
ligence to her, I stole out with my letter to the Aga 
Jenkyns, and went to the signor’s lodgings to obtain 
the exact address. I bound the signora to secrecy; 
and indeed her military manners had a degree of 
shortness and reserve in them which made her always 
say as little as possible, except when under the pres- 
sure of strong excitement. Moreover (which made 
my secret doubly sure), the signor was now so far re- 
covered as to be looking forward to travelling and con- 
juring again in the space of a few days, when he, his 
wife, and little Phoebe would leave Cranford. Indeed, 
I found him looking over a great black and red pla- 
card, in which the Signor Brunoni’s accomplishments 
were set forth, and to which only the name of the 
town where he would next display them was wanting. 
He and his wife were so much absorbed in deciding 
232 


FRIENDS IN NEED 


233 


where the red letters would come in with most effect 
(it might have been the Rubric for that matter), that 
it was some time before I could get my question asked 
privately, and not before I had given several decis- 
ions, the wisdom of which I questioned afterwards 
with equal sincerity as soon as the signor threw in his 
doubts and reasons on the important subject. At 
last I got the address, spelt by sound, and very queer 
it looked. I dropped it in the post on my way home, 
and then for a minute I stood looking at the wooden 
pane with a gaping slit which divided me from the 
letter but a moment ago in my hand. It was gone 
from me like life, never to be recalled. It would get 
tossed about on the sea, and stained with sea-waves 
perhaps, and be carried among palm-trees, and 
scented with all tropical fragrance ; the little piece of 
paper but an hour ago so familiar and commonplace, 
had set out on its race to the strange wild countries 
beyond the Ganges ! But I could not afford to lose 
much time on this speculation. I hastened home, 
that Miss Matty might not miss me. Martha opened 
the door to me, her face swollen with crying. As 
soon as she saw me she burst out afresh, and taking 
hold of my arm she pulled me in, and banged the door 
to, in order to ask me if indeed it was all true that 
Miss Matty had been saying. 

“ I’ll never leave her ! No; I won’t. I telled her 
so, and said I could not think how she could find 
in her heart to give me warning. I could not have 
had the face to do it, if I’d been her. I might ha’ 
been just as good for nothing as Mrs. Fitz- Adam’s 
Rosy, who struck for wages after living seven years 


234 


CRANFORD 


and a half in one place. I said I was not one to go 
and serve Mammon at that rate ; that I knew when 
I’d got a good missus, if she didn’t know when she’d 
got a good servant ” 

“ But, Martha,” said I, cutting in while she wiped 
her eyes. 

“ Don’t t but Martha ’ me,” she replied to my dep- 
recatory tone. 

“ Listen to reason ” 

“ I’ll not listen to reason,” she said, now in full 
possession of her voice, which had been rather choked 
with sobbing. “ Reason always means what some 
one else has got to say. Now I think what I’ve got 
to say is good enough reason ; but reason or not, I’ll 
say it, and I’ll stick to it. I’ve money in the Savings 
Bank, and I’ve a good stock of clothes, and I’m not 
going to leave Miss Matty. No, not if she gives me 
warning every hour in the day ! ” 

She put her arms akimbo, as much as to say she 
defied me; and, indeed, I could hardly tell how 
to begin to remonstrate with her, so much did I 
feel that Miss Matty, in her increasing infirmity, 
needed the attendance of this kind and faithful 
woman. 

“ Well — ” said I at last. 

“ I’m thankful you begin with 1 well ! ’ If you’d ha’ 
begun with ‘ but,’ as you did afore, I’d not ha’ listened 
to you. Now you may go on.” 

“ I know you would be a great loss to Miss Matty, 
Martha ” 

“I telled her so. A loss she’d never cease to be 
sorry for,” broke in Martha triumphantly, 


FRIENDS IN NEED 


235 



“ Still, she will have so little — so very little — to 
live upon, that I don’t see just now how she could find 
you food — she will even be pressed for her own. I 
tell you this, Martha, because I feel you are like a 
friend to dear Miss Matty, but you know she might 
not like to have it spoken about.” 


236 


CRANFORD 


Apparently this was even a blacker view of the 
subject than Miss Matty had presented to her, for 
Martha just sat down on the first chair that came to 
hand, and cried out loud (we had been standing in 
the kitchen) . 

At last she put her apron down, and looking me 
earnestly in the face, asked, “ Was that the reason 
Miss Matty wouldn’t order a pudding to-day? She 
said she had no great fancy for sweet things, and you 
and she would just have a mutton-chop. But I’ll be 
up to her. Never you tell, but I’ll make her a pud- 
ding, and a pudding she’ll like, too, and I’ll pay for it 
myself ; so mind you see she eats it. Many a one 
has been comforted in their sorrow by seeing a good 
dish come upon the table.” 

I was rather glad that Martha’s energy had taken 
the immediate and practical direction of pudding- 
making, for it staved off the quarrelsome discussion 
as to whether she should or should not leave Miss 
Matty’s service. She began to tie on a clean apron, 
and otherwise prepare herself for going to the shop 
for the butter, eggs, and what else she might require. 
She would not use a scrap of the articles already in 
the house for her cookery, but went to an old tea-pot 
in which her private store of money was deposited, 
and took out what she wanted. 

I found Miss Matty very quiet, and not a little sad ; 
but by and by she tried to smile for my sake. It was 
settled that I was to write to my father, and ask him 
to come over and hold a consultation, and as soon as 
this letter was despatched we began to talk over future 
plans. Miss Matty’s idea was to take a single room, 


FRIENDS IN NEED 


237 


and retain as much of her furniture as would be 
necessary to fit up this, and sell the rest, and there 
to quietly exist upon what would remain after paying 
the rent. For my part, I was more ambitious and 
less contented. I thought of all the things by which 
a woman past middle age, and with the education 
common to ladies fifty years ago, could earn or add to 
a living without materially losing caste ; but at length 
I put even this last clause on one side, and wondered 
what in the world Miss Matty could do. 

Teaching was, of course, the first thing that sug- 
gested itself. If Miss Matty could teach children 
anything, it would throw her among the little elves 
in whom her soul delighted. I ran over her accom- 
plishments. Once upon a time I heard her say she 
could play “Ah! vous dirai-je, maman?” on the 
piano, but that was long, long ago ; that faint shadow 
of musical acquirement had died out years before. 
She had also once been able to trace out patterns 
very nicely for muslin embroidery, by dint of placing 
a piece of silver-paper over the design to be copied, 
and holding both against the window-pane while she 
marked the scollop and eyelet-holes. But that was 
her nearest approach to the accomplishment of draw- 
ing, and I did not think it would go very far. Then 
again, as to the branches of a solid English education 
— fancy work and the use of the globes — such as 
the mistress of the Ladies 1 Seminary, to which all 
the tradespeople in Cranford sent their daughters, 
professed to teach. Miss Matty’s eyes were failing 
her, and I doubted if she could discover the number 
of threads in a worsted-work pattern, or rightly ap- 


238 


CRANFORD 


predate the different shades required for Queen Ade- 
laide’s face in the loyal wool-work now fashionable in 
Cranford. As for the use of the globes, I had never 
been able to find it out myself, so perhaps I was not 
a good judge of Miss Matty’s capability of instruct- 
ing in this branch of education ; but it struck me that 
equators and tropics, and such mystical circles, were 
very imaginary lines indeed to her, and that she 
looked upon the signs of the Zodiac as so many 
remnants of the Black Art. 

What she piqued herself upon, as arts in which she 
excelled, was making candle-lighters, or “ spills ” (as 
she preferred calling them), of coloured paper, cut 
so as to resemble feathers, and knitting garters in a 
variety of dainty stitches. I had once said, on re- 
ceiving a present of an elaborate pair, that I should 
feel quite tempted to drop one of them in the street, 
in order to have it admired ; but I found this little 
joke (and it was a very little one) was such a distress 
to her sense of propriety, and was taken with such 
anxious, earnest alarm, lest the temptation might 
some day prove too strong for me, that I quite re- 
gretted having ventured upon it. A present of these 
delicately-wrought garters, a bunch of gay “ spills,” 
or a set of cards on which sewing-silk was wound in 
a mystical manner, were the well-known tokens of 
Miss Matty’s favour. But would any one pay to 
have their children taught these arts? or, indeed, 
would Miss Matty sell, for filthy lucre, the knack and 
the skill with which she made trifles of value to those 
who loved her? 

I had to come down to reading, writing, and arith- 


FRIENDS IN NEED 


239 


metic; and, in reading the chapter every morning, 
she always coughed before coming to long words. I 
doubted her power of getting through a genealogical 
chapter, with any number of coughs. Writing she 
did well and delicately — but spelling ! She seemed 
to think that the more out-of-the-way this was, and 
the more trouble it cost her, the greater the compli- 
ment she paid to her correspondent ; and words that 
she would spell quite correctly in her letters to me 
became perfect enigmas when she wrote to my 
father. 

No ! there was nothing she could teach to the 
rising generation of Cranford, unless they had been 
quick learners and ready imitators of her patience, her 
humility, her sweetness, her quiet 'contentment with 
all that she could not do. I pondered and pondered 
until dinner was announced by Martha, with a face 
all blubbered and swollen with crying. 

Miss Matty had a few little peculiarities which 
Martha was apt to regard as whims below her atten- 
tion, and appeared to consider as childish fancies of 
which an old lady of fifty-eight should try and cure 
herself. But to-day everything was attended to with 
the most careful regard. The bread was cut to the 
imaginary pattern of excellence that existed in Miss 
Matty’s mind, as being the way which her mother had 
preferred, the curtain was drawn so as to exclude the 
dead brick-wall of a neighbour’s stables, and yet left 
so as to show every tender leaf of the poplar which 
was bursting into spring beauty. Martha’s tone to 
Miss Matty was just such as that good, rough-spoken 
servant usually kept sacred for little children, and 


240 


CRANFORD 


which I had never heard her use to any grown-up 
person. 

I had forgotten to tell Miss Matty about the 
pudding, and I was afraid she might not do justice to 
it, for she had evidently very little appetite this day ; 
so I seized the opportunity of letting her into the 
secret while Martha took away the meat. Miss 



Matty’s eyes filled with tears, and she could not speak, 
either to express surprise or delight, when Martha 
returned bearing it aloft, made in the most wonderful 
representation of a lion couchant that ever was 
moulded. Martha’s face gleamed with triumph as 
she set it down before Miss Matty with an exultant 
“There!” Miss Matty wanted to speak her thanks, 
but could not ; so she took Martha’s hand and shook 



FRIENDS IN NEED 


241 


it warmly, which set Martha off crying, and I myself 
could hardly keep up the necessary composure. 
Martha burst out of the room, and Miss Matty had 
to clear her voice once or twice before she could 
speak. At last she said, “I should like to keep this 
pudding under a glass shade, my dear ! ” and the 
notion of the lion couchant , with his currant eyes, 
being hoisted up to the place of honour on a mantel- 
piece, tickled my hysterical fancy, and I began to 
laugh, which rather surprised Miss Matty. 

“ I am sure, dear, I have seen uglier things under 
a glass shade before now,” said she. 

So had I, many a time and oft, and I accordingly 
composed my countenance (and now I could hardly 
keep from crying), and we both fell to upon the 
pudding, which was indeed excellent - — only every 
morsel seemed to choke us, our hearts were so full. 

We had too much to think about to talk much that 
afternoon. It passed over very tranquilly. But when 
the tea-urn was brought in a new thought came into 
my head. Why should not Miss Matty sell tea — be 
an agent to the East India Tea Company which then 
existed? I could see no objections to this plan, while 
the advantages were many — always supposing that 
Miss Matty could get over the degradation of conde- 
scending to anything like trade. Tea was neither 
greasy nor sticky — grease and stickiness being two of 
the qualities which Miss Matty could not endure. No 
shop-window would be required. A small, genteel 
notification of her being licensed to sell tea would, it 
is true, be necessary, but I hoped that it could be 
placed where no one would see it. Neither was tea 


242 


CRANFORD 


a heavy article, so as to tax Miss Matty’s fragile 
strength. The only thing against my plan was the 
buying and selling involved. 

While I was giving but absent answers to the 
questions Miss Matty was putting — almost as ab- 
sently — we heard a clumping sound on the stairs, 
and a whispering outside the door, which indeed once 
opened and shut as if by some invisible agency. After 
a little while Martha came in, dragging after her a 
great tall young man, all crimson with shyness, and 
finding his only relief in perpetually sleeking down 
his hair. 

“Please, ma’am, he’s only Jem Hearn,” said Mar- 
tha, by way of an introduction ; and so out of breath 
was she that I imagine she had had some bodily 
struggle before she could overcome his reluctance to 
be presented on the courtly scene of Miss Matilda Jen- 
kyns’s drawing-room. 

“ And please, ma’am, he wants to marry me off- 
hand. And please, ma’am, we want to take a lodger 
— just one quiet lodger, to make our two ends meet ; 
and we’d take any house conformable ; and, oh dear 
Miss Matty, if I may be so bold, would you have any 
objections to lodging with us ? Jem wants it as much 
as I do.” [To Jem:] — “You great oaf! why can’t 
you back me ? — But he does want it all the same, 
very bad — don’t you, Jem? — only, you see, he’s 
dazed at being called on to speak before quality.” 

“It’s not that,” broke in Jem. “It’s that you’ve 
taken me all on a sudden, and I didn’t think for to 
get married so soon — and such quick work does flab- 
bergast a man. It’s not that I’m against it, ma’am ” 


FRIENDS IN NEED 


243 


(addressing Miss Matty), “only Martha has such 
quick ways with her when once she takes a thing into 
her head ; and marriage, ma’am — marriage nails a 
man, as one may say. I daresay I shan’t mind it after 
it’s once over.” 

“Please, ma’am,” said Martha — who had plucked 
at his sleeve, and nudged him with her elbow, and 
otherwise tried to interrupt him all the time he had 
been speaking — “don’t mind him, he’ll come to; 
’twas only last night he was an-axing me, and an- 
axing me, and all the more because I said I could 
not think of it for years to come, and now he’s only 
taken aback with the suddenness of the joy ; but you 
know, Jem, you are just as full as me about wanting 
a lodger.” (Another great nudge.) 

“ Ay ! if Miss Matty would lodge with us — other- 
wise I’ve no mind to be cumbered with strange folk in 
the house,” said Jem, with a want of tact which I 
could see enraged Martha, who was trying to repre- 
sent a lodger as the great object they wished to ob- 
tain, and that, in fact, Miss Matty would be smoothing 
their path and conferring a favour, if she would only 
come and live with them. 

Miss Matty herself was bewildered by the pair; 
their, or rather Martha’s sudden resolution in favour 
of matrimony staggered her, and stood between her 
and the contemplation of the plan which Martha had 
at heart. Miss Matty began — 

“ Marriage is a very solemn thing, Martha.” 

“ It is indeed, ma’am,” quoth Jem. “ Not that I’ve 
no objections to Martha.” 

“ You’ve never let me a-be for asking me for to fix 


244 


CRANFORD 


when I would be married , 11 said Martha — her face all 
a-fire, and ready to cry with vexation — “ and now 
you’re shaming me before my missus and all . 11 

“ Nay, now ! Martha, don’t ee ! don’t ee ! only a 
man likes to have breathing-time,” said Jem, trying 
to possess himself of her hand, but in vain. Then 
seeing that she was more seriously hurt than he had 
imagined, he seemed to try to rally his scattered fac- 
ulties, and with more straightforward dignity than, 
ten minutes before - , I should have thought it possible 
for him to assume, he turned to Miss Matty, and 
said, “ I hope, ma’am, you know that I am bound to 
respect every one who has been kind to Martha. I 
always looked on her as to be my wife — some time ; 
and she has often and often spoken of you as the 
kindest lady that ever was ; and though the plain 
truth is, I would not like to be troubled with lodgers 
of the common run, yet if, ma’am, you’d honour us by 
living with us, I’m sure Martha would do her best to 
make you comfortable ; and I’d keep out of your way 
as much as I could, which I reckon would be the best 
kindness such an awkward chap as me could do.” 

Miss Matty had been very busy with taking off her 
spectacles, wiping them, and replacing them ; but all 
she could say was, “ Don’t let any thought of me hurry 
you into marriage : pray don’t ! Marriage is such a 
very solemn thing ! ” 

“ But Miss Matilda will think of your plan, Martha,” 
said I, struck with the advantages that it offered, and 
unwilling to lose the opportunity of considering about 
it. “ And I’m sure neither she nor I can ever forget 
your kindness ; nor yours either, Jem.” 


FRIENDS IN NEED 


245 


“ Why, yes, ma’am ! I’m sure I mean kindly, though 
I’m a bit fluttered by being pushed straight a-head 
into matrimony, as it were, and mayn’t express my- 
self conformable. But I’m sure I’m willing enough, 
and give me time to get accustomed ; so, Martha, 
wench, what’s the use of crying so, and slapping me 
if I come near? ” 

This last was sotto voce , and had the effect of mak- 
ing Martha bounce out of the room, to be followed 
and soothed by her lover. Whereupon Miss Matty 
sat down and cried very heartily, and accounted for 
it by saying that the thought of Martha being mar- 
ried so soon gave her quite a shock, and that she 
should never forgive herself if she thought she was 
hurrying the poor creature. I think my pity was 
more for Jem, of the two; but both Miss Matty and 
I appreciated to the full the kindness of the honest 
couple, although we said little about this, and a good 
deal about the chances and dangers of matrimony. 

The next morning, very early, I received a note 
from Miss Pole, so mysteriously wrapped up, and with 
so many seals on it to secure secrecy, that I had to 
tear the paper before I could unfold it. And when 
I came to the writing I could hardly understand the 
meaning, it was so involved and oracular. I made 
out, however, that I was to go to Miss Pole’s at eleven 
o’clock ; the number eleven being written in full length 
as well as in numerals, and A.M. twice dashed under, 
as if I were very likely to come at eleven at night, 
when all Cranford was usually a-bed and asleep by 
ten. There was no signature except Miss Pole’s 
initials reversed, P. E. ; but as Martha had given me 


246 


CRANFORD 



the note, “ with Miss Pole’s kind regards,” it needed 
no wizard to find out who sent it ; and if the writer’s 
name was to be kept secret, it was very well that I 
was alone when Martha delivered it. 


FRIENDS IN NEED 


247 


I went as requested to Miss Pole’s. The door was 
opened to me by her little maid Lizzie in Sunday 
trim, as if some grand event was impending over 
this workday. And the drawing-room upstairs was 
arranged in accordance with this idea. The table 
was set out with the best green card-cloth, and writ- 
ing materials upon it. On the little chiffonier was a 
tray with a newly-decanted bottle of cowslip-wine, 
and some ladies’-finger biscuits. Miss Pole herself 
was in solemn array, as if to receive visitors, although 
it was only eleven o’clock. Mrs. Forrester was there, 
crying quietly and sadly, and my arrival seemed only 
to call forth fresh tears. Before we had finished our 
greetings, performed with lugubrious mystery of de- 
meanour, there was another rat-tat-tat, and Mrs. Fitz- 
Adam appeared, crimson with walking and excitement. 
It seemed as if this was all the company expected ; 
for now Miss Pole made several demonstrations of 
being about to open the business of the meeting, by 
stirring the fire, opening and shutting the door, and 
coughing and blowing her nose. Then she arranged 
us all round the table, taking care to place me oppo- 
site to her ; and last of all, she inquired of me if the 
sad report was true, as she feared it was, that Miss 
Matty had lost all her fortune ? 

Of course, I had but one answer to make ; and 
I never saw more unaffected sorrow depicted on 
any countenances than I did there on the three be- 
fore me. 

“I wish Mrs. Jamieson was here!” said Mrs. For- 
rester at last ; but to judge from Mrs. Fitz-Adam’s 
face, she could not second the wish. 


248 


CRANFORD 


“But without Mrs. Jamieson,” said Miss Pole, with 
just a sound of offended merit in her voice, “ we, the 
ladies of Cranford, in my drawing-room assembled, 
can resolve upon something. I imagine we are none 
of us what may be called rich, though we all possess 
a genteel competency, sufficient for tastes that are 
elegant and refined, and would not, if they could, 
be vulgarly ostentatious.” (Here I observed Miss 
Pole refer to a small card concealed in her hand, 
on which I imagine she had put down a few 
notes.) 

“ Miss Smith,” she continued, addressing me (famil- 
iarly known as “ Mary ” to all the company assembled, 
but this was a state occasion), “ I have conversed in 
private — I made it my business to do so yesterday 
afternoon — with these ladies on the misfortune 
which has happened to our friend, and one and all of 
us have agreed that while we have a superfluity, it is 
not only a duty, but a pleasure — a true pleasure, 
Mary! ” — her voice was rather choked just here, and 
she had to wipe her spectacles before she could go 
on — “to give what we can to assist her — Miss 
Matilda Jenkyns. Only in consideration of the feel- 
ings of delicate independence existing in the mind of 
every refined female ” — I was sure she had got back 
to the card now — “ we wish to contribute our mites 
in a secret and concealed manner, so as not to hurt 
the feelings I have referred to. And our object in 
requesting you to meet us this morning is that, be- 
lieving you are the daughter — that your father is, in 
fact, her confidential adviser in all pecuniary matters, 
we imagined that, by consulting with him, you might 


FRIENDS IN NEED 


249 


devise some mode in which our contribution could be 
made to appear the legal due which Miss Matilda 

Jenkyns ought to receive from . Probably, your 

father, knowing her investments, can fill up the 
blank.” 

Miss Pole concluded her address, and looked round 
for approval and agreement. 

“ I have expressed your meaning, ladies, have I not? 
And while Miss Smith considers what reply to make, 
allow me to offer you some little refreshment.” 

I had no great reply to make ; I had more thankful- 
ness at my heart for their kind thoughts than I cared 
to put into words ; and so I only mumbled out some- 
thing to the effect “ that I would name what Miss Pole 
had said to my father, and that if anything could be 
arranged for dear Miss Matty,” — and here I broke 
down utterly, and had to be refreshed with a glass of 
cowslip wine before I could check the crying which had 
been repressed for the last two or three days. The 
worst was, all the ladies cried in concert. Even Miss 
Pole cried, who had said a hundred times that to be- 
tray emotion before any one was a sign of weakness 
and want of self-control. She recovered herself into 
a slight degree of impatient anger, directed against 
me, as having set them all off ; and, moreover, I think 
she was vexed that I could not make a speech back in 
return for hers ; and if I had known beforehand what 
was to be said, and had a card on which to express 
the probable feelings that would rise in my heart, I 
would have tried to gratify her. As it was, Mrs. For- 
rester was the person to speak when we had recovered 
our composure. 


250 


CRANFORD 


“ I don’t mind, among friends, stating that I — no ! 
I’m not poor exactly, but I don’t think I’m what you 
may call rich ; I wish I were, for dear Miss Matty’s 
sake — but, if you please, I’ll write down in a sealed 
paper what I can give. I only wish it was more : my 
dear Mary, I do indeed.” 

Now I saw why paper, pens, and ink were provided. 
Every lady wrote down the sum she could give annu- 
ally, signed the paper, and sealed it mysteriously. If 
their proposal was acceded to, my father was to be al- 
lowed to open the papers, under pledge of secrecy. 
If not, they were to be returned to their writers. 

When this ceremony had been gone through, I rose 
to depart ; but each lady seemed to wish to have a 
private conference with me. Miss Pole kept me in 
the drawing-room to explain why, in Mrs. Jamieson’s 
absence, she had taken the lead in this “ movement,” 
as she was pleased to call it, and also to inform me 
that she had heard from good sources that Mrs. Ja- 
mieson was coming home directly in a state of high 
displeasure against her sister-in-law, who was forth- 
with to leave her house, and was, she believed, to re- 
turn to Edinburgh that very afternoon. Of course 
this piece of intelligence could not be communicated 
before Mrs. Fitz-Adam, more especially as Miss Pole 
was inclined to think that Lady Glenmire’s engage- 
ment to Mr. Hoggins could not possibly hold against 
the blaze of Mrs. Jamieson’s displeasure. A few 
hearty inquiries after Miss Matty’s health concluded 
my interview with Miss Pole. 

On coming downstairs I found Mrs. Forrester wait- 
ing for me at the entrance to the dining-parlour ; she 


FRIENDS IN NEED 


251 


drew me in, and when the door was shut, she tried two 
or three times to begin on some subject, which was so 
unapproachable apparently, that I began to despair of 
our ever getting to a clear understanding. At last out 
it came ; the poor old lady trembling all the time, as 
if it were a great crime which she was exposing to day- 
light, in telling me how very, very little she had to live 
upon ; a confession which she was brought to make 
from a dread lest we should think that the small con- 
tribution named in her paper bore any proportion to 
her love and regard for Miss Matty. And yet that 
sum which she so eagerly relinquished was, in truth, 
more than a twentieth part of what she had to live 
upon, and keep house, and a little serving-maid, all as 
became one born a Tyrrell. And when the whole in- 
come does not nearly amount to a hundred pounds, 
to give up a twentieth of it will necessitate many 
careful economies, and many pieces of self-denial, 
small and insignificant in the world’s account, but 
bearing a different value in another account-book 
that I have heard of. She did so wish she was rich, 
she said, and this wish she kept repeating, with no 
thought of herself in it, only with a longing, yearning 
desire to be able to heap up Miss Matty’s measure of 
comforts. 

It was some time before I could console her enough 
to leave her ; and then, on quitting the house, I was 
waylaid by Mrs. Fitz-Adam, who had also her confi- 
dence to make of pretty nearly the opposite descrip- 
tion. She had not liked to put down all that she 
could afford and was ready to give. She told me 
she thought she never could look Miss Matty in the 


252 


CRANFORD 


face again if she presumed to be giving her so much 
as she should like to do. “Miss Matty ! ” continued 
she, “ that I thought was such a fine young lady when I 
was nothing but a country girl, coming to market with 
eggs and butter and such like things. For my father, 
though well-to-do, would always make me go on as 
my mother had done before me, and I had to come 
into Cranford every Saturday, and see after sales, and 
prices, and what not. And one day, I remember, I 
met Miss Matty in the lane that leads to Combehurst ; 
she was walking on the footpath, which, you know, is 
raised a good way above the road, and a gentleman 
rode beside her, and was talking to her, and she was 
looking down at some primroses she had gathered, 
and pulling them all to pieces, and I do believe she 
was crying. But after she had passed, she turned 
round and ran after me to ask — oh, so kindly — about 
my poor mother, who lay on her death-bed ; and when 
I cried she took hold of my hand to comfort me — 
and the gentleman waiting for her all the time — and 
her poor heart very full of something, I am sure ; and 
I thought it such an honour to be spoken to in that 
pretty way by the rector’s daughter, who visited at 
Arley Hall. I have loved her ever since, though per- 
haps I’d no right to do it ; but if you can think of any 
way in which I might be allowed to give a little more 
without any one knowing it I should be so much 
obliged to you, my dear. And my brother would be 
delighted to doctor her for nothing — medicines, 
leeches, and all. I know that he and her ladyship 
(my dear, I little thought in the days I was telling 
you of that I should ever come to be sister-in-law 


FRIENDS IN NEED 


253 


to a ladyship !) would do anything for her. We all 
would.” 

I told her I was quite sure of it, and promised all 
sorts of things in my anxiety to get home to Miss 
Matty, who might well be wondering what had become 
of me — absent from her two hours without being able 
to account for it. She had taken very little note of 
time, however, as she had been occupied in number- 
less little arrangements preparatory to the great step 
of giving up her house. It was evidently a relief to 
her to be doing something in the way of retrench- 
ment, for, as she said, whenever she paused to think, 
the recollection of the poor fellow with his bad five- 
pound note came over her, and she felt quite dis- 
honest ; only if it made her so uncomfortable, what 
must it not be doing to the directors of the bank, who 
must know so much more of the misery consequent 
upon this failure? She almost made me angry by 
dividing her sympathy between these directors (whom 
she imagined overwhelmed by self-reproach for the 
mismanagement of other people’s affairs) and those 
who were suffering like her. Indeed, of the two, she 
seemed to think poverty a lighter burden than self- 
reproach ; but I privately doubted if the directors 
would agree with her. 

Old hoards were taken out and examinea as to 
their money value, which luckily was small, or else I 
don’t know how Miss Matty would have prevailed 
upon herself to part with such things as her mother’s 
wedding-ring, the strange, uncouth brooch with which 
her father had disfigured his shirt-frill, etc. However, 
we arranged things a little in order as to their pecu- 


254 


CRANFORD 


niary estimation, and were all ready for my father 
when he came the next morning. 

I am not going to weary you with the details of all 
the business we went through ; and one reason for 
not telling about them is, that I did not understand 
what we were doing at the time, and cannot recollect 
it now. Miss Matty and I sat assenting to accounts, 
and schemes, and reports, and documents, of which I 
do not believe we either of us understood a word ; for 
my father was clear-headed and decisive, and a capital 
man of business, and if we made the slightest inquiry, 
or expressed the slightest want of comprehension, he 
had a sharp way of saying, “ Eh ? eh ? it’s as clear as 
daylight. What’s your objection? ” And as we had 
not comprehended anything of what he had proposed, 
we found it rather difficult to shape our objections ; in 
fact, we never were sure if we had any. So presently 
Miss Matty got into a nervously acquiescent state, 
and said “Yes,” and “Certainly,” at every pause, 
whether required or not ; but when I once joined in 
as chorus to a “ Decidedly,” pronounced by Miss 
Matty in a tremblingly dubious tone, my father fired 
round at me and asked me “What there was to 
decide?” And I am sure to this day I have never 
known. But, in justice to him, I must say he had 
come over from Drumble to help Miss Matty when 
he could ill spare the time, and when his own affairs 
were in a very anxious state. 

While Miss Matty was out of the room giving 
orders for luncheon — and sadly perplexed between 
her desire of honouring my father by a delicate, dainty 
meal, and her conviction that she had no right, now 


FRIENDS IN NEED 


255 


that all her money was gone, to indulge this desire — 
I told him of the meeting of the Cranford ladies at 
Miss Pole’s the day before. He kept brushing his 
hand before his eyes as I spoke — and when I went 
back to Martha’s offer the evening before, of receiving 
Miss Matty as a lodger, he fairly walked away from 
me to the window, and began drumming with his 
fingers upon it. Then he turned abruptly round, and 
said, “ See, Mary, how a good innocent life makes 
friends all around. Confound it ! I could make a good 
lesson out of it if I were a parson ; but, as it is, I can’t 
get a tail to my sentences — only I’m sure you feel 
what I want to say. You and I will have a walk after 
lunch and talk a bit more about these plans.” 

The lunch — a hot savoury mutton-chop, and a little 
of the cold loin sliced and fried — was now brought 
in. Every morsel of this last dish was finished, to 
Martha’s great gratification. Then my father bluntly 
told Miss Matty he wanted to talk to me alone, and 
that he would stroll out and see some of the old 
places, and then I could tell her what plan we thought 
desirable. Just before we went out, she called me 
back and said, “ Remember, dear, I’m the only one 
left — I mean, there’s no one to be hurt by what I do. 
I’m willing to do anything that’s right and honest; 
and I don’t think, if Deborah knows where she is, 
she’ll care so very much if I’m not genteel ; because, 
you see, she’ll know all, dear. Only let me see what 
I can do, and pay the poor people as far as I’m able.” 

I gave her a hearty kiss, and ran after my father. 
The result of our conversation was this. If all parties 
were agreeable, Martha and Jem were to be married 


256 


CRANFORD 



Drumming with his fingers upon it 


with as little delay as possible, and they were to live 
on in Miss Matty’s present abode ; the sum which the 
Cranford ladies had agreed to contribute annually 
being sufficient to meet the greater part of the rent. 




FRIENDS IN NEED 


257 


and leaving Martha free to appropriate what Miss 
Matty should pay for her lodgings to any little extra 
comforts required. About the sale, my father was 
dubious at first. He said the old rectory furniture, 
however carefully used and reverently treated, would 
fetch very little ; and that little would be but as a 
drop in the sea of the debts of the Town and County 
Bank. But when I represented how Miss Matty’s 
tender conscience would be soothed by feeling that 
she had done what she could, he gave way ; especially 
after I had told him the five-pound note adventure, 
and he had scolded me well for allowing it. I then 
alluded to my idea that she might add to her small 
income by selling tea ; and, to my surprise (for I had 
nearly given up the plan), my father grasped at it with 
all the energy of a tradesman. I think he reckoned 
his chickens before they were hatched, for he imme- 
diately ran up the profits of the sales that she could 
effect in Cranford to more than twenty pounds a year. 
The small dining-parlour was to be converted into a 
shop, without any of its degrading characteristics ; a 
table was to be the counter ; one window was to be 
retained unaltered, and the other changed into a glass 
door. I evidently rose in his estimation for having 
made this bright suggestion. I only hoped we should 
not both fall in Miss Matty’s. 

But she was patient and content with all our 
arrangements. She knew, she said, that we should do 
the best we could for her ; and she only hoped, only 
stipulated, that she should pay every farthing that she 
could be said to owe, for her father’s sake, who had 
been so respected in Cranford. My father and I had 


258 


CRANFORD 


agreed to say as little as possible about the bank, in- 
deed never to mention it again, if it could be helped. 
Some of the plans were evidently a little perplexing 
to her ; but she had seen, me sufficiently snubbed in 
the morning for want of comprehension to venture on 
too many inquiries now ; and all passed over well, 
with a hope on her part that no one would be hurried 
into marriage on her account. When we came to the 
proposal that she should sell tea, I could see it was 
rather a shock to her; not on account of any per- 
sonal loss of gentility involved, but only because she 
distrusted her own powers of action in a new line of 
life, and would timidly have preferred a little more 
privation to any exertion for which she feared she was 
unfitted. However, when she saw my father was bent 
upon it, she sighed, and said she would try ; and if 
she did not do well, of course she might give it up. 
One good thing about it was, she did not think men 
ever bought tea ; and it was of men particularly she 
was afraid. They had such sharp loud ways with 
them ; and did up accounts, and counted their change 
so quickly ! Now, if she might only sell comfits to 
children, she was sure she could please them ! 



Ofa/it'pv 'SCV 

?y? 'yfapriy Return.. 


Before I left Miss Matty at Cranford everything 
had been comfortably arranged for her. Even Mrs. 
Jamieson’s approval of her selling tea had been gained. 
That oracle had taken a few days to consider whether 
by so doing Miss Matty would forfeit her right to the 
privileges of society in Cranford. I think she had 
some little idea of mortifying Lady Glenmire by the 
decision she gave at last : which was to this effect : 
that whereas a married woman takes her husband’s 
rank by the strict laws of precedence, an unmarried 
woman retains the station her father occupied. So 
Cranford was allowed to visit Miss Matty; and, 
whether allowed or not, it intended to visit Lady 
Glenmire. 

But what was our surprise — our dismay — when 
we learnt that Mr. and Mrs. Hoggins were returning 
on the following Tuesday. Mrs. Hoggins ! Had she 
absolutely dropped her title, and so, in a spirit of bra- 
vado, cut the aristocracy to become a Hoggins! She, 
who might have been called Lady Glenmire to her dying 

259 


260 


CRANFORD 


day ! Mrs. Jamieson was pleased. She said it only 
convinced her of what she had known from the first, 
that the creature had a low taste. But “ the creature ” 



looked very happy on Sunday at church ; nor did 
we see it necessary to keep our veils down on that 
side of our bonnets on which Mr. and Mrs. Hoggins 
sat, as Mrs. Jamieson did; thereby missing all the 
smiling glory of his face, and all the becoming blushes 


A HAPPY RETURN 


261 


of hers. I am not sure if Martha and Jem looked 
more radiant in the afternoon, when they, too, made 
their first appearance. Mrs. Jamieson soothed the 
turbulence of her soul by having the blinds of her 
windows drawn down, as if for a funeral, on the day 
when Mr. and Mrs. Hoggins received callers ; and it 
was with some difficulty that she was prevailed upon 
to continue the St. James's Chronicle , so indignant 
was she with its having inserted the announcement 
of the marriage. 

Miss Matty’s sale went off famously. She retained 
the furniture of her sitting-room and bedroom ; the 
former of which she was to occupy till Martha could 
meet with a lodger who might wish to take it ; and 
into this sitting-room and bedroom she had to cram 
all sorts of things, which were (the auctioneer assured 
her) bought in for her at the sale by an unknown 
friend. I always suspected Mrs. Fitz-Adam of this; 
but she must have had an accessory, who knew what 
articles were particularly regarded by Miss Matty on 
account of their associations with her early days. The 
rest of the house looked rather bare, to be sure ; all 
except one tiny bedroom, of which my father allowed 
me to purchase the furniture for my occasional use in 
case of Miss Matty’s illness. 

I had expended my own small store in buying all 
manner of comfits and lozenges, in order to tempt the 
little people whom Miss Matty loved so much to come 
about her. Tea in bright green canisters, and comfits 
in tumblers — Miss Matty and I felt quite proud as 
we looked round us on the evening before the shop 
was to be opened. Martha had scoured the boarded 


262 


CRANFORD 


floor to a white cleanness, and it was adorned with a 
brilliant piece of oil-cloth, on which customers were 
to stand before the table-counter. The wholesome 
smell of plaster and whitewash pervaded the apart- 
ment. A very small “Matilda Jenkyns, licensed to 
sell tea,” was hidden under the lintel of the new door, 
and two boxes of tea, with cabalistic inscriptions all 
over them, stood ready to disgorge their contents into 
the canisters. 

Miss Matty, as I ought to have mentioned before, 
had had some scruples of conscience at selling tea 
when there was already Mr. Johnson in the town, who 
included it among his numerous commodities ; and, 
before she could quite reconcile herself to the adop- 
tion of her new business, she had trotted down to his 
shop, unknown to me, to tell him of the project that 
was entertained, and to inquire if it was likely to injure 
his business. My father called this idea of hers “ great 
nonsense,” and “ wondered how tradespeople were to 
get on if there was to be a continual consulting of 
each other’s interests, which would put a stop to all 
competition directly.” And, perhaps, it would not 
have done in Drumble, but in Cranford it answered 
very well ; for not only did Mr. Johnson kindly put 
at rest all Miss Matty’s scruples and fear of injuring 
his business, but I have reason to know he repeatedly 
sent customers to her, saying that the teas he kept 
were of a common kind, but that Miss Jenkyns had 
all the choice sorts. And expensive tea is a very 
favourite luxury with well-to-do tradespeople and rich 
farmers’ wives, who turn up their noses at the Congou 
and Souchong prevalent at many tables of gentility, 


A HAPPY RETURN 


263 


and will have nothing else than Gunpowder and 
Pekoe for themselves. 

But to return to Miss Matty. It was really very 
pleasant to see how her unselfishness and simple 
sense of justice called out the same good qualities in 
others. She never seemed to think any one would 
impose upon her, because she should be so grieved 
to do it to them. I have heard her put a stop to the 
asseverations of the man who brought her coals by 
quietly saying, “ 1 am sure you would be sorry to 
bring me wrong weight ; ” and if the coals were short 
measure that time, I don’t believe they ever were 
again. People would have felt as much ashamed of 
presuming on her good faith as they would have done 
on that of a child. But my father says “such sim- 
plicity might be very well in Cranford, but would 
never do in the world.” And I fancy the world must 
be very bad, for with all my father’s suspicion of every 
one with whom he has dealings, and in spite of all 
his many precautions, he lost upwards of a thousand 
pounds by roguery only last year. 

I just stayed long enough to establish Miss Matty 
in her new mode of life, and to pack up the library, 
which the rector had purchased. He had written a 
very kind letter to Miss Matty, saying “ how glad 
he should be to take a library, so well selected as 
he knew that the late Mr. Jenkyns’s must have been, 
at any valuation put upon them.-” And when she 
agreed to this, with a touch of sorrowful gladness 
that they would go back to the rectory and be 
arranged on the accustomed walls once more, he 
sent word that he feared that he had not room for 


264 


CRANFORD 


them all, and perhaps Miss Matty would kindly 
allow him to leave some volumes on her shelves. 
But Miss Matty said that she had her Bible and 
Johnson’s Dictionary , and should not have much 
time for reading, she was afraid ; still, I retained a 
few books out of consideration for the rector’s 
kindness. 

The money which he had paid, and that produced 
by the sale, was partly expended in the stock of tea, 
and part of it was invested against a rainy day — i.e. 
old age or illness. It was but a small sum, it is true ; 
and it occasioned a few evasions of truth and white 
lies (all of which I think very wrong indeed — in 
theory — and would rather not put them in practice), 
for we knew Miss Matty would be perplexed as to her 
duty if she were aware of any little reserve-fund being 
made for her while the debts of the bank remained 
unpaid. Moreover, she had never been told of the way 
in which her friends were contributing to pay the rent. 
I should have liked to tell her this, but the mystery 
of the affair gave a piquancy to their deed of kind- 
ness which the ladies were unwilling to give up ; and 
at first Martha had to shirk many a perplexed question 
as to her ways and means of living in such a house, 
but by and by Miss Matty’s prudent uneasiness sank 
down into acquiescence with the existing arrangement. 

I left Miss Matty with a good heart. Her sales of 
tea during the first^two days had surpassed my most 
sanguine expectations. The whole country round 
seemed to be all out of tea at once. The only altera- 
tion I could have desired in Miss Matty’s way of doing 
business was, that she should not have so plaintively 


A HAPPY RETURN 


265 


entreated some of her customers not to buy green tea 
— running it down as slow poison, sure to destroy the 
nerves, and produce all manner of evil. Their perti- 
nacity in taking it, in spite of all her warnings, distressed 
her so tnuch that I really thought she would relinquish 
the sale of it, and so lose half her custom ; and I was 
driven to my wits 1 end for instances of longevity 
entirely attributable to a persevering use of green tea. 
But the final argument, which settled the question, 
was a happy reference of mine to the train-oil and 
tallow candles which the Esquimaux not only enjoy 
but digest. After that she acknowledged that “ one 
man’s meat might be another man’s poison,” and 
contented herself thenceforward with an occasional 
remonstrance when she thought the purchaser was 
too young and innocent to be acquainted with the 
evil effects green tea produced on some constitutions, 
and an habitual sigh when people old enough to choose 
more wisely would prefer it. 

I went over from Drumble once a quarter at least to 
settle the accounts, and see after the necessary busi- 
ness letters. And speaking of letters, I began to be 
very much ashamed of remembering my letter to the 
Aga Jenkyns, and very glad I had never named my 
writing to any one. I only hoped the letter was lost. 
No answer came. No sign was made. 

About a year after Miss Matty set up shop, I 
received one of Martha’s hieroglyphics, begging me 
to come to Cranford very soon. I was afraid that 
Miss Matty was ill, and went off that very afternoon, 
and took Martha by surprise when she saw me on 
opening the door. We went into the kitchen, as 


266 


CRANFORD 


usual, to have our confidential conference, and then 
Martha told me she was expecting her confinement 
very soon — in a week or two ; and she did not think 
Miss Matty was aware of it, and she wanted me to 
break the news to her, u for indeed, miss,” continued 
Martha, crying hysterically, “ I’m afraid she won’t 
approve of it, and I’m sure I don’t know who is to 
take care of her as she should be taken care of when 
I am laid up.” 

I comforted Martha by telling her I would remain 
till she was about again, and only wished she had told 
me her reason for this sudden summons, as then I 
would have brought the requisite stock of clothes. 
But Martha was so tearful and tender-spirited, and 
unlike her usual self, that I said as little as possible 
about myself, and endeavoured rather to comfort 
Martha under all the probable and possible misfortunes 
which came crowding upon her imagination. 

I then stole out of the house-door, and made my 
appearance as if I were a customer in the shop, just 
to take Miss Matty by surprise, and gain an idea of 
how she looked in her new situation. It was warm 
May weather, so only the little half-door was closed ; 
and Miss Matty sat behind her counter, knitting an 
elaborate pair of garters ; elaborate they seemed to 
me, but the difficult stitch was no weight upon her 
mind, for she was singing in a low voice to herself as 
her needles went rapidly in and out. I call it singing, 
but I daresay a musician would not use that word to 
the tuneless yet sweet humming of the low, worn 
voice. I found out from the words, far more than 
from the attempt at the tune, that it was the Old 


A HAPPY RETURN 


267 


Hundredth she was crooning to herself ; but the quiet 
continuous sound told of content, and gave me a 
pleasant feeling, as I stood in the street just outside 
the door, quite in harmony with that soft May morn- 
ing. I went in. At first she did not catch who it was, 
and stood up as if to serve me ; but in another minute 
watchful pussy had clutched her knitting, which was 
dropped in eager joy at seeing me. I found, after we 
had had a little conversation, that it was as Martha 
said, and that Miss Matty had no idea of the approach- 
ing household event. So I thought I would let things 
take their course, secure that when I went to her with 
the baby in my arms, I should obtain that forgiveness 
for Martha which she was needlessly frightening her- 
self into believing that Miss Matty would withhold, 
under some notion that the new claimant would 
require attentions from its mother that it would be 
faithless treason to Miss Matty to render. 

But I was right. I think that must be an heredi- 
tary quality, for my father says he is scarcely ever 
wrong. One morning, within a week after I arrived, 
I went to call Miss Matty, with a little bundle of flan- 
nel in my arms. She was very much awestruck when 
I showed her what it was, and asked for her spectacles 
off the dressing-table, and looked at it curiously, with 
a sort of tender wonder at its small perfection of parts. 
She could not banish the thought of the surprise all 
day, but went about on tiptoe, and was very silent. 
But she stole up to see Martha, and they both cried 
with joy, and she got into a complimentary speech to 
Jem, and did not know how to get out of it again, and 
was only extricated from her dilemma by the sound 


268 


CRANFORD 


of the shop-bell, which was an equal relief to the shy, 
proud, honest Jem, who shook my hand so vigorously 
when I congratulated him, that I think I feel the pain 
of it yet. 

I had a busy life while Martha was laid up. I 
attended on Miss Matty, and prepared her meals ; I 
cast up her accounts, and examined into the state of 
her canisters and tumblers. I helped her, too, occa- 
sionally, in the shop ; and it gave me no small amuse- 
ment, and sometimes a little uneasiness, to watch her 
ways there. If a little child came in to ask for an 
ounce of almond-comfits (and four of the large kind 
which Miss Matty sold weighed that much), she always 
added one more by “ way of make-weight,” as she 
called it, although the scale was handsomely turned 
before ; and when I remonstrated against this, her 
reply was, “ The little things like it so much! ” There 
was no use in telling her that the fifth comfit weighed 
a quarter of an ounce, and made every sale into a loss 
to her pocket. So I remembered the green tea, and 
winged my shaft with a feather out of her own plu- 
mage. I told her how unwholesome almond-comfits 
were, and how ill excess in them might make the little 
children. This argument produced some effect ; for, 
henceforward, instead of the fifth comfit, she always 
told them to hold out their tiny palms, into which she 
shook either peppermint or ginger lozenges, as a pre- 
ventive to the dangers that might arise from the pre- 
vious sale. Altogether the lozenge trade, conducted 
on these principles, did not promise to be remuner- 
ative ; but I was happy to find she had made more 
than twenty pounds during the last year by her sales 


A HAPPY RETURN 


269 


of tea ; and, moreover, that now she was accustomed 
to it, she did not dislike the employment, which 
brought her into kindly intercourse with many of the 
people round about. If she gave them good weight, 
they, in their turn, brought many a little country 
present to the “ old rector’s daughter ” ; a cream 
cheese, a few new-laid eggs, a little fresh ripe fruit, a 
bunch of flowers. The counter was quite loaded with 
these offerings sometimes, as she told me. 

As for Cranford in general, it was going on much 
as usual. The Jamieson and Hoggins feud still 
raged, if a feud it could be called, when only one side 
cared much about it. Mr. and Mrs. Hoggins were 
very happy together, and, like most very happy peo- 
ple, quite ready to be friendly; indeed, Mrs. Hoggins 
was really desirous to be restored to Mrs. Jamieson’s 
good graces, because of the former intimacy. But 
Mrs. Jamieson considered their very happiness an 
insult to the Glenmire family, to which she had still 
the honour to belong, and she doggedly refused and 
rejected every advance. Mr. Mulliner, like a faithful 
clansman, espoused his mistress’s side with ardour. If 
he saw either Mr. or Mrs. Hoggins, he would cross the 
street, and appear absorbed in the contemplation of 
life in general, and his own path in particular, until 
he had passed them by. Miss Pole used to amuse 
herself with wondering what in the world Mrs. Jamie- 
son would do, if either she, or Mr. Mulliner, or any 
other member of her household, was taken ill ; she 
could hardly have the face to call in Mr. Hoggins 
after the way she had behaved to them. Miss Pole 
grew quite impatient for some indisposition or acci- 


270 


CRANFORD 


dent to befall Mrs. Jamieson or her dependants, in 
order that Cranford might see how she would act 
under the perplexing circumstances. 



“ Absorbed, in contemplation 


Martha was beginning to go about again, and I 
had already fixed a limit, not very far distant, to my 
visit, when one afternoon, as I was sitting in the shop- 
parlour with Miss Matty — I remember the weather 


A HAPPY RETURN 


271 


was colder now than it had been in May, three weeks 
before, and we had a fire and kept the door fully 
closed — we saw a gentleman go slowly past the win- 
dow, and then stand opposite to the door, as if look- 
ing out for the name which we had so carefully hidden. 
He took out a double eye-glass and peered about for 
some time before he could discover it. Then he 
came in. And, all on a sudden, it flashed across me 
that it was the Aga himself ! For his clothes had an 
out-of-the-way foreign cut about them, and his face 
was deep brown, as if tanned and re-tanned by the 
sun. His complexion contrasted oddly with his 
plentiful snow-white hair, his eyes were dark and 
piercing, and he had an odd way of contracting them 
and puckering up his cheeks into innumerable wrinkles 
when he looked earnestly at objects. He did so to 
Miss Matty when he first came in. His glance had 
first caught and lingered a little upon me, but then 
turned, with the peculiar searching look I have de- 
scribed, to Miss Matty. She was a little fluttered and 
nervous, but no more so than she always was when 
any man came into her shop. She thought that he 
w r ould probably have a note, or a sovereign at least, 
for which she would have to give change, which was 
an operation she very much disliked to perform. But 
the present customer stood opposite to her, without 
asking for anything, only looking fixedly at her as he 
drummed upon the table with his fingers, just for all 
the world as Miss Jenkyns used to do. Miss Matty 
was on the point of asking him what he wanted (as 
she told me afterwards), when he turned sharp to me : 
u Is your name Mary Smith ? ” 


272 


CRANFORD 


u Yes ! ” said I. 

All my doubts as to his identity were set at rest, 
and I only wondered what he would say or do next, 
and how Miss Matty would stand the joyful shock of 
what he had to reveal. Apparently he was at a loss 
how to announce himself, for he looked around at 
last in search of something to buy, so as to gain time, 
and, as it happened, his eye caught on the almond- 
comfits, and he boldly asked for a pound of “ those 
things.” I doubt if Miss Matty had a whole pound 
in the shop, and, besides the unusual magnitude of 
the order, she was distressed with the idea of the in- 
digestion they would produce, taken in such unlimited 
quantities. She looked up to remonstrate. Some- 
thing of tender relaxation in his face struck home to 
her heart. She said, “It is — oh sir! can you be 
Peter?” and trembled from head to foot. In a mo- 
ment he was round the table and had her in his arms, 
sobbing the tearless cries of old age. I brought her 
a glass of wine, for indeed her colour had changed so 
as to alarm me and Mr. Peter too. He kept saying, 
“ I have been too sudden for you, Matty — I have my 
little girl.” 

I proposed that she should go at once up into the 
drawing-room and lie down on the sofa there. She 
looked wistfully at her brother, whose hand she had 
held tight, even when nearly fainting ; but on his as- 
suring her that he would not leave her, she allowed 
him to carry her upstairs. 

I thought that the best I could do was to run and 
put the kettle on the fire for early tea, and then to 
attend to the shop, leaving the brother and sister to 


A HAPPY RETURN 


273 


exchange some of the many thousand things they 
must have to say. I had also to break the news to 
Martha, who received it with a burst of tears which 
nearly infected me. She kept recovering herself to 
ask if I was sure it was indeed Miss Matty’s brother, 
for I had mentioned that he had gray hair, and she 
had always heard that he was a very handsome young 
man. Something of the same kind perplexed Miss 
Matty at tea-time, when she was installed in the great 
easy-chair opposite to Mr. Jenkyns’s in order to gaze 
her fill. She could hardly drink for looking at him, 
and as for eating, that was out of the question. 

“ 1 suppose hot climates age people very quickly,” 
she said, almost to herself. “When you left Cran- 
ford you had not a gray hair in your head.” 

“ But how many years ago is that ? ” said Mr. Peter, 
smiling. 

“Ah, true ! yes, I suppose you and I are getting 
old. But still I did not think we were so very old ! 
But white hair is very becoming to you, Peter,” she 
continued — a little afraid lest she had hurt him by 
revealing how his appearance had impressed her. 

“ I suppose I forgot dates too, Matty, for what do 
you think I have brought for you from India? I 
have an Indian muslin gown and a pearl necklace for 
you somewhere in my chest at Portsmouth.” He 
smiled as if amused at the idea of the incongruity of 
his presents with the appearance of his sister ; but 
this did not strike her all at once, while the elegance 
of the articles did. I could see that for a moment 
her imagination dwelt complacently on the idea of 
herself thus attired ; and instinctively she put her 


274 


CRANFORD 


hand up to her throat — that little delicate throat 
which (as Miss Pole had told me) had been one 
of her youthful charms ; but the hand met the touch 
of folds of soft muslin in which she was always 
swathed up to her chin, and the sensation recalled a 
sense of the unsuitableness of a pearl necklace to her 
age. She said, “ Pm afraid Pm too old ; but it was 
very kind of you to think of it. They are just what 
I should have liked years ago — when I was young.” 

“ So I thought, my little Matty. I remembered 
your tastes ; they were so like my dear mother’s.” At 
the mention of that name the brother and sister 
clasped each other’s hands yet more fondly, and, 
although they were perfectly silent, I fancied they 
might have something to say if they were unchecked 
by my presence, and I got up to arrange my room 
for Mr. Peter’s occupation that night, intending my- 
self to share Miss Matty’s bed. But at my movement 
he started up. “I must go and settle about a room 
at the i George.’ My carpet-bag is there too.” 

“No !” said Miss Matty, in great distress — “you 
must not go; please, dear Peter — pray, Mary — oh ! 
you must not go ! ” 

She was so much agitated that we both promised 
everything she wished. Peter sat down again and 
gave her his hand, which for better security she held 
in both of hers, and I left the room to accomplish 
my arrangements. 

Long, long into the night, far, far into the morning, 
did Miss Matty and I talk. She had much to tell 
m# of her brother’s life and adventures, which he had 
communicated to her as they had sat alone. She said 


A HAPPY RETURN 


275 


all was thoroughly clear to her ; but I never quite un- 
derstood the whole story ; and when in after days I lost 
my awe of Mr. Peter enough to question him myself, 
he laughed at my curiosity, and told me stories that 
sounded so very much like Baron Munchausen’s, that 
I was sure he was making fun of me. What I heard 
from Miss Matty was that he had been a volunteer at 
the siege of Rangoon ; had been taken prisoner by 
the Burmese ; had somehow obtained favour and 
eventual freedom from knowing how to bleed the 
chief of the small tribe in some case of dangerous 
illness ; that on his release from years of captivity he 
had had his letters returned from England with the 
ominous word “ Dead ” marked upon them ; and, be- 
lieving himself to be the last of his race, he had set- 
tled down as an indigo planter, and had proposed to 
spend the remainder of his life in the country to 
whose inhabitants and modes of life he had become 
habituated, when my letter had reached him, and 
with the odd vehemence which characterised him 
in age as it had done in youth, he had sold his 
land and all his possessions to the first purchaser, and 
come home to the poor old sister, who was more glad 
and rich than any princess when she looked at him. 
She talked me to sleep at last, and then I was awak- 
ened by a slight sound at the door, for which she 
begged my pardon as she crept penitently into bed ; 
but it seems that when I could no longer confirm her 
belief that the long-lost was really here — under the 
same roof — she had begun to fear lest it was only a 
waking dream of hers ; that there never had been a 
Peter sitting by her all that blessed evening — but 


276 


CRANFORD 


that the real Peter lay dead far away beneath some 
wild sea-wave, or under some strange eastern tree. 
And so strong had this nervous feeling of hers be- 
come, that she was fain to get up and go and con- 
vince herself that he was really there by listening 
through the door to his even, regular breathing — I 
don’t like to call it snoring, but I heard it myself 
through two closed doors — and by and by it soothed 
Miss Matty to sleep. 

I don’t believe Mr. Peter came home from India 
as rich as a nabob ; he even considered himself poor, 
but neither he nor Miss Matty cared much about 
that. At any. rate, he had enough to live upon 
“very genteelly” at Cranford ; he and Miss Matty to- 
gether. And a day or two after his arrival the shop 
was closed, while troops of little urchins gleefully 
awaited the shower of comfits and lozenges that 
came from time to time down upon their faces as 
they stood up-gazing at Miss Matty’s ‘drawing-room 
windows. Occasionally Miss Matty would say to 
them (half-hidden behind the curtains), “ My dear 
children, don’t make yourselves ill ; ” but a strong 
arm pulled her back, and a more rattling shower 
than ever succeeded. A part of the tea was sent in 
presents to the Cranford ladies ; and some of it was 
distributed among the old people who remembered 
Mr. Peter in the days of his frolicsome youth. The 
India muslin gown was reserved for darling Flora 
Gordon (Miss Jessie Brown’s daughter). The Gor- 
dons had been on the Continent for the last few years, 
but were now expected to return very soon ; and Miss 
Matty, in her sisterly pride, anticipated great delight 


A HAPPY RETURN 


277 


in the joy of showing them Mr. Peter. The pearl 
necklace disappeared ; and about that time many 
handsome and useful presents made their appearance 
in the households of Miss Pole and Mrs. Forrester; 
and some rare and delicate Indian ornaments graced 
the drawing-rooms of Mrs. Jamieson and Mrs. Fitz- 
Adam. I myself was not forgotten. Among other 
things, I had the handsomest bound and best edition 
of Dr. Johnson’s works that could be procured; and 
dear Miss Matty, with tears in her eyes, begged me 
to consider it as a present from her sister as well as 
herself. In short, no one was forgotten ; and, what 
was more, every one, however insignificant, who had 
shown kindness to Miss Matty at any time, was 
sure of Mr. Peter’s cordial regard. 





Cfiaptpr 3VI. 
tfeace lo Cranford , 

It was not surprising that Mr. Peter became such 
a favourite at Cranford. The ladies vied with each 
other who should admire him most ; and no wonder, 
for their quiet lives were astonishingly stirred up by 
the arrival from India — especially as the person 
arrived told more wonderful stories than Sindbad the 
Sailor ; and, as Miss Pole said, was quite as good as 
an Arabian Night any evening. For my own part, 
I had vibrated all my life between Drumble and Cran- 
ford, and I thought it was quite possible that all Mr. 
Peter’s stories might be true, although wonderful ; 
but when I found that, if we swallowed an anecdote 
of tolerable magnitude one week, we had the dose 
considerably increased the next, I began to have my 
doubts ; especially as I noticed that when his sister 
was present the accounts of Indian life were compar- 
atively tame ; not that she knew more than we did, 
perhaps less. I noticed also that when the rector 
came to call, Mr. Peter talked in a different way 
about the countries he had been in. But I don’t 
think the ladies in Cranford would have considered 
him such a wonderful traveller if they had only heard 
278 


PEACE TO CRANFORD 


279 


him talk in the quiet way he did to him. They liked 
him the better, indeed, for being what they called “ so 
very Oriental.” 

One day, at a select party in his honour, which 
Miss Pole gave, and from which, as Mrs. Jamieson 
honoured it with her presence, and had even offered 
to send Mr. Mulliner to wait, Mr and Mrs. Hoggins 



“ The Father of the Faithful'' 


and Mrs. Fitz-Adam were necessarily excluded — 
one day at Miss Pole’s, Mr. Peter said he was tired 
of sitting upright against the hard-backed uneasy 
chairs, and asked if he might not indulge himself in 
sitting cross-legged. Miss Pole’s consent was eagerly 
given, and down he went with the utmost gravity. 
But when Miss Pole asked me, in an audible whisper, 
“if he did not remind me of the Father of the Faith- 
ful?” I could not help thinking of poor Simon Jones, 


280 


CRANFORD 


the lame tailor; and while Mrs. Jamieson slowly 
commented on the elegance and convenience of the 
attitude, I remembered how we had all followed that 
lady’s lead in condemning Mr. Hoggins for vulgarity 
because he simply crossed his legs as he sat still on 
his chair. Many of Mr. Peter’s ways of eating were 
a little strange amongst such ladies as Miss Pole, 
and Miss Matty, and Mrs. Jamieson, especially when 
I recollected the untasted green peas and two-pronged 
forks at poor Mr. Holbrook’s dinner. 

The mention of that gentleman’s name recalls to 
my mind a conversation between Mr. Peter and Miss 
Matty one evening in the summer after he re- 
turned to Cranford. The day had been very hot, 
and Miss Matty had been much oppressed by the 
weather, in the heat of which her brother revelled. 
I remember that she had been unable to nurse 
Martha’s baby, which had become her favourite em- 
ployment of late, and which was as much at home in 
her arms as in its mother’s, as long as it remained 
a light-weight, portable by one so fragile as Miss 
Matty. This day to which I refer, Miss Matty had 
seemed more than usually feeble and languid, and 
only revived when the sun went down, and her sofa 
was wheeled to the open window, through which, 
although it looked into the principal street of Cranford, 
the fragrant smell of the neighbouring hay-fields 
came in every now and then, borne by the soft breezes 
that stirred the dull air of the summer twilight, and 
then died away. The silence of the sultry atmosphere 
was lost in the murmuring noises which came in from 
many an open window and door; even the children 


PEACE TO CRANFORD 


281 


were abroad in the street, late as it was (between 
ten and eleven), enjoying the game of play for which 
they had not had spirits during the heat of the day. 
It was a source of satisfaction to Miss Matty to see 
how few candles were lighted, even in the apartments 
of those houses from which issued the greatest signs 
of life. Mr. Peter, Miss Matty, and I had all been 
quiet, each with a separate reverie, for some little 
time, when Mr. Peter broke in — 

“ Do you know, little Matty, I could have sworn you 
were on the high road to matrimony when I left Eng- 
land that last time ! If anybody had told me you 
would have lived and died an old maid then, I should 
have laughed in their faces.” 

Miss Matty made no reply, and I tried in vain to 
think of some subject which would effectually turn 
the conversation ; but I was very stupid ; and before 
I spoke, he went on — 

“ It was Holbrook, that fine manly fellow who lived 
at Woodley, that I used to think would carry off my 
little Matty. You would not think it now, I daresay, 
Mary ; but this sister of mine was once a very pretty 
girl — at least, I thought so, and so Pve a notion did 
poor Holbrook. What business had he to die before 
I came home to thank him for all his kindness to a 
good-for-nothing cub as I was ? It was that that made 
me first think he cared for you ; for in all our- fishing 
expeditions it was Matty, Matty, we talked about. 
Poor Deborah ! What a lecture she read me on hav- 
ing asked him home to lunch one day, when she had 
seen the Arley carriage in the town, and thought that 
my lady might call. Well, that’s long years ago ; 


282 


CRANFORD 


more than half a lifetime, and yet it seems like yester- 
day ! I don’t know a fellow I should have liked better 
as a brother-in-law. Y ou must have played your cards 
badly, my little Matty, somehow or another — wanted 
your brother to be a good go-between, eh, little one ? ” 
said he, putting out his hand to take hold of hers as 
she lay on the sofa. “Why, what’s this? you’re 
shivering and shaking, Matty, with that confounded 
open window. Shut it, Mary, this minute ! ” 

I did so, and then stooped down to kiss Miss Matty, 
and see if she really were chilled. She caught at my 
hand, and gave it a hard squeeze — but unconsciously, 
I think — for in a minute or two she spoke to us quite 
in her usual voice, and smiled our uneasiness away, 
although she patiently submitted to the prescriptions 
we enforced of a warm bed and a glass of weak negus. 
I was to leave Cranford the next day, and before I 
went I saw that all the effects of the open window had 
quite vanished. I had superintended most of the al- 
terations necessary in the house and household during 
the latter weeks of my stay. The shop was once more 
a parlour; the empty resounding rooms again fur- 
nished up to the very garrets. 

There has been some talk of establishing Martha 
and Jem in another house, but Miss Matty would not 
hear of this. Indeed, I never saw her so much roused 
as when Miss Pole had assumed it to be the most 
desirable arrangement. As long as Martha would 
remain with Miss Matty, Miss Matty was only too 
thankful to have her about her; yes, and Jem too, 
who was a very pleasant man to have in the house, 
for she never saw him from week’s end to week’s end. 


PEACE TO CRANFORD 


283 


And as for the probable children, if they would all 
turn out such little darlings as her god-daughter, Ma- 
tilda, she should not mind the number, if Martha 
didn’t. Besides, the next was to be called Deborah 
— a point which Miss Matty had reluctantly yielded 
to Martha’s stubborn determination that her first-born 
was to be Matilda. So Miss Pole had to lower her 
colours, and even her voice, as she said to me that, 
as Mr. and Mrs. Hearn were still to go on living in 
the same house with Miss Matty, we had certainly 
done a wise thing in hiring Martha’s niece as an aux- 
iliary. 

I left Miss Matty and Mr. Peter most comfortable 
and contented ; the only subject for regret to the ten- 
der heart of the one, and the social friendly nature of 
the other, being the unfortunate quarrel between Mrs. 
Jamieson and the plebeian Hogginses and their fol- 
lowing. In joke, I prophesied one day that this 
would only last until Mrs. Jamieson or Mr. Mulliner 
were ill, in which case they would only be too glad 
to be friends with Mr. Hoggins ; but Miss Matty did 
not like my looking forward to anything like illness 
in so light a manner, and before the year was out all 
had come round in a far more satisfactory way. 

I received two Cranford letters on one auspicious 
October morning. Both Miss Pole and Miss Matty 
wrote to ask me to come over and meet the Gordons, 
who had returned to England alive and well with their 
two children, now almost grown up. Dear Jessie 
Brown had kept her old kind nature, although she 
had changed her name and station ; and she wrote to 
say that she and Major Gordon expected to be in 


284 


CRANFORD 


Cranford on the fourteenth, and she hoped and 
begged to be remembered to Mrs. Jamieson (named 
first, as became her honourable station), Miss Pole 
and Miss Matty — could she ever forget their kind- 
ness to her poor father and sister? — Mrs. Forrester, 
Mr. Hoggins (and here again came in an allusion to 
kindness shown to the dead long ago), his new wife, 
who as such must allow Mrs. Gordon to desire to 
make her acquaintance, and who was, moreover, an old 
Scotch friend of her husband’s. In short, every one 
was named, from the rector — who had been appointed 
to Cranford in the interim between Captain Brown’s 
death and Miss Jessie’s marriage, and was now asso- 
ciated with the latter event — down to Miss Betsy 
Barker. All were asked to the luncheon ; all except 
Mrs. Fitz-Adam, who had come to live in Cranford 
since Miss Jessie Brown’s days, and whom I found 
rather moping on account of the omission. People 
wondered at Miss Betty Barker’s being included in 
the honourable list ; but, then, as Miss Pole said, we 
must remember the disregard of the genteel proprie- 
ties of life in which the poor captain had educated his 
girls, and for his sake we swallowed our pride. In- 
deed, Mrs. Jamieson rather took it as a compliment, 
as putting Miss Betty (formerly her maid) on a level 
with “those Hogginses.” 

But when I arrived in Cranford, nothing was as yet 
ascertained of Mrs. Jamieson’s own intentions ; would 
the honourable lady go, or would she not? Mr. Peter 
declared that she should and she would ; Miss Pole 
shook her head and desponded. But Mr. Peter was 
a man of resources. In the first place, he persuaded 


PEACE TO CRANFORD 


285 


Miss Matty to write to Mrs. Gordon, and to tell her 
of Mrs. Fitz-Adam’s existence, and to beg that one so 
kind, and cordial, and generous, might be included in 
the pleasant invitation. An answer came back by 
return of post, with a pretty little note for Mrs. Fitz- 
Adam, and a request that Miss Matty would’ deliver 
it herself and explain the previous omission. Mrs. 
Fitz-Adam was as pleased as could be, and thanked 
Miss Matty over and over again. Mr. Peter had said, 
“ Leave Mrs. Jamieson to me ; 11 so we did ; especially 
as we knew nothing that we could do to alter her 
determination if once formed. 

I did not know, nor did Miss Matty, how things 
were going on, until Miss Pole asked me, just the day 
before Mrs. Gordon came, if I thought there was any- 
thing between Mr. Peter and Mrs. Jamieson in the 
matrimonial line, for that Mrs. Jamieson was really 
going to the lunch at the “ George.” She had sent 
Mr. Mulliner down to desire that there might be a 
footstool put to the warmest seat in the room, as she 
meant to come, and knew that their chairs were very 
high. Miss Pole had picked this piece of news up, 
and from it she conjectured all sorts of things, and 
bemoaned yet more. “If Peter should marry, what 
would become of poor dear Miss Matty? And Mrs. 
Jamieson, of all people! ” Miss Pole seemed to think 
there were other ladies in Cranford who would have 
done more credit to his choice, and I think she must 
have had some one who was unmarried in her head, 
for she kept saying, “ It was so wanting in delicacy in 
a widow to think of such a thing . 11 

When I got back to Miss Matty’s I really did be- 


286 


CRANFORD 


gin to think that Mr. Peter might be thinking of Mrs. 
Jamieson for a wife, and I was as unhappy as Miss 
Pole about it. He had the proof sheet of a great 
placard in his hand. “ Signor Brunoni, Magician to 
the King of Delhi, the Rajah of Oude, and the great 
Lama of Thibet,” etc. etc. was going to “ perform in 
Cranford for one night only,” the very next night ; 
and Miss Matty, exultant, showed me a letter from 
the Gordons, promising to remain over this gaiety, 
which Miss Matty said was entirely Peter’s doing. 
He had written to ask the signor to come, and was to 
be at all the expenses of the affair. Tickets were to 
be sent gratis to as many as the room would hold. 
In short, Miss Matty was charmed with the plan, and 
said that to-morrow Cranford would remind her of 
the Preston Guild, to which she had been in her 
youth — a luncheon at the “ George,” with the dear 
Gordons, and the signor in the Assembly Room in 
the evening. But I — I looked only at the fatal 
words — 

“ Under the patronage of the Honourable Mrs. 
Jamieson.” 

She, then, was chosen to preside over this enter- 
tainment of Mr. Peter’s ; she was perhaps going to 
displace my dear Miss Matty in his heart, and make 
her life lonely once more ! I could not look forward 
to the morrow with any pleasure ; and every innocent 
anticipation of Miss Matty’s only served to add to 
my annoyance. 

So, angry and irritated, and exaggerating every little 
incident which could add to my irritation, I went on 


PEACE TO CRANFORD 


287 


till we were all assembled in the great parlour at 
the “ George.” Major and Mrs. Gordon and pretty 
Flora and Mr. Ludovic were all as bright and hand- 
some and friendly as could be ; but I could hardly 
attend to them for watching Mr. Peter, and I saw that 
Miss Pole was equally busy. I had never seen Mrs. 
Jamieson so roused and animated before ; her face 
looked full of interest in what Mr. Peter was saying. 
I drew near to listen. My relief was great when I 
caught that his words were not words of love, but 
that, for all his grave face, he was at his old tricks. 
He was telling her of his travels in India, and describ- 
ing the wonderful height of the Himalaya mountains : 
one touch after another added to their size, and each 
exceeded the former in absurdity ; but Mrs. Jamieson 
really enjoyed all in perfect good faith. I suppose 
she required strong stimulants to excite her to come 
out of her apathy. Mr. Peter wound up his account 
by saying that, of course, at that altitude there were 
none of the animals to be found that existed in the 
lower regions ; the game — everything was different. 
Firing one day at some flying creature, he was very 
much dismayed when it fell to find that he had shot 
a cherubim ! Mr. Peter caught my eye at this mo- 
ment, and gave me such a funny twinkle, that I felt 
sure he had no thoughts of Mrs. Jamieson as a wife 
from that time. She looked uncomfortably amazed — 
“But, Mr. Peter, shooting a cherubim — don’t you 
think — I am afraid that was sacrilege ! ” 

Mr. Peter composed his countenance in a moment, 
and appeared shocked at the idea, which, as he said 
truly enough, was now presented to him for the first 


588 


CRANFORD 


time; but then Mrs. Jamieson must remember that 
he had been living for a long time among savages — 
all of whom were heathens — some of them, he was 
afraid, were downright Dissenters. Then, seeing Miss 
Matty draw near, he hastily changed the conversation, 
and after a little while, turning to me, he said, “ Don’t 



be shocked, prim little Mary, at all my wonderful 
stories. I consider Mrs. Jamieson fair game, and 
besides I am bent on propitiating her, and the first 
step towards it is keeping her well awake. I bribed 
her here by asking her to let me have her name as 
patroness for my poor conjuror this evening ; and I 
don’t want to give her time enough to get up her 
rancour against the Hogginses, who are just coming 


PEACE TO CRANFORD 


289 


in. I want everybody to be friends, for it harasses 
Matty so much to hear of these quarrels. I shall go 
at it again by and by, so you need not look shocked. 
I intend to enter the Assembly Room to-night with 



"Mrs. Jamieson on one side, and my lady, Mrs. Hoggins, on 
the other C 


Mrs. Jamieson on one side and my lady, Mrs. Hog- 
gins, on the other. You see if I don’t.” 

Somehow or another he did ; and fairly got them 
into conversation together. Major and Mrs. Gordon 
helped at the good work with their perfect ignorance 


290 


CRANFORD 


of any existing coolness between any of the inhabi- 
tants of Cranford. 

Ever since that day there has been the old friendly 
sociability in Cranford society ; which I am thankful 
for, because of my dear Miss Matty’s love of peace and 
kindliness. We all love Miss Matty, and I somehow 
think we are all of us better when she is near us. 




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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



